This Way Up: Unpacking human rights for business

Our Executive Director Phil Bloomer summarises 2024-25 and talks about our impact working with partners and allies around the world, and a vision for the business and human rights movement over the months and years ahead. 

Image credit: Cyrus Mower. 

More than 60% of companies assessed by the World Benchmarking Alliance are improving their human rights practices, but there’s still a long way to go. Live from #UNForumBHR, Namit Agarwal spells out what he believes companies and governments must do next.

“We need more implementation to make sure that what’s already there can help us get somewhere.” 

A positive perspective from Mutuso Dhliwayo, Executive Director at Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association on the huge difference that effective implementation of pre-existing regulations and frameworks could make towards a just transition. 

“There is not a just transition if you don’t bring workers into the negotiations from the beginning.” 

Live from #UNForumBHR 🎧, ITUC Co-Director Diana Junquera tells us why governments and companies must take responsibility and connect with workers in the just transition process.

How should investors continue to press their portfolio companies to engage with just transition issues, and what role do governments have to play in a shifting and uncertain future environment? 

Fascinating insight from Chavi Keeney Nana at the Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility live from #UNForumBHR.

As female workers in Bangladesh are increasingly uprooted from traditional agricultural work to industrial jobs, worker involvement in how the just transition unfolds will be essential, as Sunzida Sultana from Karmojibi Nari tells us at #UNForumBHR. 

Fascinating perspective from Kudakwashe Manjonjo at Power Shift Africa at COP29 on how financing green industrialisation won’t just support the world’s action on climate change, but if done properly could also help 1.3 billion people in Africa move out of energy poverty.

A must-listen interview from #COP29 with Joan Carling, Executive Director of The Indigenous Peoples Rights International, as she explains why human rights due diligence and centring the rights of Indigenous Peoples must at the centre of any conversation around the just transition.

Earthworks Executive Director

Talking live from #COP29 sessions happening today on transitional minerals and mining standards, Indigenous rights advocate Bryan Bixcul from SIRGE Coalition tells us why the words remain the same from global companies, but we are yet to see the necessary actions to back them up.