COMMENT: Désirée Abrahams of Global Action Plan argues that a new approach to due diligence is needed that spans both action to address climate change and unintended human rights consequences
Comment: Kristen Lang, senior director of the Ceres Company Network, explains how the Ceres Roadmap 2030 can help companies not only survive, but thrive over the coming decade by changing the way they do business
Comment: Felicitas Weber of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre says while there has been some progress on addressing modern slavery by electronics companies, implementation lags policy
With transparency on human rights lagging climate change in corporate reporting, Mike Scott looks at the rising reputational, legal and brand risks, and some of the companies that are leading the way
Negative progress towards a deforestation-free economy; global chemical industry faces pollution problem as demand increases; and fashion industry under pressure over transparency of its supply chains in Oliver Balch’s sustainability news roundup
Barbra Anderson of Destination Better says that by having robust programmes in place, hotels will be better placed to address the risks of participating in modern slavery
Traffickers often rely on hotels to sustain their operations using them to house their victims or sell forced services, but now many in the industry are taking steps to tackle the problem. Amy Brown reports
John Morrison of the Institute for Human Rights and Business says 2018 saw business find common cause with civil society on fundamentals such as rule of law and freedom of expression
Caroline Rees of Shift says says CSR commitments are no longer enough. Companies must make deep structural changes to attack the root causes of inequality
Sara Blackwell of Shift says companies have been slow to grasp the truly positive results of working to address adverse impacts on people’s basic rights in everything they do as a business
The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark has led to a surge in human rights reporting since it was launched a year ago, but the failure of more than a quarter of companies to engage is cause for deep concern, says Magdalena Kettis of Sweden’s Nordea Bank
Andrew Forrest of Walk Free Foundation and Lord Carlile of Berriew argue that the UK leadership on tackling human rights abuse will be critical over the next two years