This Way Up: Unpacking human rights for business

How can we advance the human rights agenda in private equity? Private capital markets have seen enormous growth in recent years, and their largely unregulated, under-scrutinised nature creates conditions for exploitative practices and human rights risks. But private equity funds have significant leverage over portfolio companies, and investors have a unique opportunity to push for better practice and advance respect for human rights. For this special episode from BHRRC and BSR, Áine Clarke is joined by Paloma Muñoz Quick from BSR, author and corporate accountability advocate Benjamin Cokelet, and Michael Musuraca, Strategic Advisor on ESG and Labour at Blue Wolf Capital.

Episode glossary

ESG investing – Environmental, Social & Governance

PE – Private Equity

LPA – Limited Partner Agreement

LP – Limited Partners

GP – General Partners

How much do we need the energy we produce? How can we change our energy systems—from the bottom up—to better serve all sections of society? The global push for the energy transition cannot mean uprooting communities and cutting off water access. We’re joined by Gregory Thomas of the National Heritage Institute and Dr. Noah Kittner from the University of North Carolina for a discussion on examples including the proposed Sambor Dam on Asia’s Mekong River.

For full details of the backing tracks and soundbites used in this episode, please see this reference document .

While hydropower has successfully provided significant amounts of power around the world and played a important role in meeting the intermittency challenge of solar and wind, it is not a purely clean and green source of energy. Dr. Noah Kittner and climate scientist Ilissa Ocko explore the costs of hydropower including loss of food sources for local communities affected by dams, and increased methane emissions from reservoirs.

For full details of the backing tracks and soundbites used in this episode, please see this reference document.

Proposed alternatives to traditional land mining include space mining, deep sea and urban mining. The feasibility of space mining in the near enough future for the energy transition is unlikely, so scientists are giving more attention to deep sea mining. Helen Rosenbaum from the Deep Sea Mining Campaign and Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mike Brown shed light on social risks and logistical roadblocks to this solution, leaving urban mining as a potential emerging solution. Andy Whitmore from the London Mining Network explains that more than changing our sources of energy, a broader change in our energy use throughout the supply chain is needed.

For full details of the backing tracks and soundbites used in this episode, please see this reference document.

This episode explores the capacity for communities to hold companies accountable when their rights are violated by transition mineral mining. Helen Rosenbaum from the Deep Sea Mining Campaign and Manson Gwanyanya, Researcher & Representative for Southern & Anglophone West Africa at the Resource Centre, discuss how examples from the Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea and the Konkola Copper Mine in Zambia prove the devastating environmental and human rights resulting from insufficient access to remedy.

For full details of the backing tracks and soundbites used in this episode, please see this reference document.

Over the past decade, scientists and policy makers have noted how the climate crisis will exacerbate social, environmental and economic factors which increase the risk of conflict – particularly for the countries and regions most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis. This episode poses an important question – will the measures we take to tackle the climate crisis drive conflict? 

Andrew Whitmore, Co-Chair of the London Mining Network, joins Elizabeth to give context to how a large-scale mining operation can perpetuate violence with high-profile government contracts. Excerpts from an interview with 2001 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Yosepha Alomang of the Amungme people show how detrimental operations can be for Indigenous communities.

For full details of the backing tracks and soundbites used in this episode, please see this reference document.

Reducing the world’s carbon footprint is no simple task, and while the need for a transition to renewable energy is urgent, the cost of extraction of transition minerals cannot be ignored. Human rights abuses are widespread in the growing extractives sector, alongside significant environmental damages. The first episode in our new series on the 'Cost of Clean Energy' tackles the social impacts associated with the transition minerals boom, with reports of abuse including child labour, modern slavery and violence. 

Our host Elizabeth Dykstra-McCarthy, a former member of the BHRRC Natural Resources team now consulting on climate action and environmental issues, is joined in this episode by:

For full details of the backing tracks and soundbites used in this episode, please see this reference document.

The economic systems that have fuelled growth in the 21st century have done so, largely, at a grave cost to workers in the Global South. The Covid-19 pandemic brought deep-rooted drivers of inequality and exploitation into sharp relief, be it directly in companies failing to afford workers the protections necessary to continue to work without fear of transmission, or indirectly in those who failed to ensure security for at-risk workers in their supply chain. For this episode, we were joined by a live online audience to discuss the vision for the next decade of the guiding principles, and the role they can play in supporting a just recovery from the pandemic.

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Gender discrimination and intersecting structures of marginalisation mean women and girls experience unique and disproportionate business-related human rights abuses. Recent work on the UNGPs acknowledges the structural gender barriers at play, but much still needs to be done by governments and businesses to translate policies into practices that protect and advance the rights of women and girls. How do business operations both perpetuate and exacerbate gender discrimination? Has the UNGP framework been a useful tool for gender justice - and what opportunities and challenges lie ahead?

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Standards on investor responsibility for human rights have evolved substantially over the past decade. Guidance including the UNGPs and OECD guidelines expect investors to clearly state, identify and address how they are respecting human rights within, and how they are using their influence over companies to ensure access to remedy. But how has this translated into action, what can we learn from the positive impacts and how can we mitigate the limitations?

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Any securities mentioned during the podcast are not a recommendation to buy or sell.