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Article

30 Jun 2015

Author:
John Morrison, Institute for Human Rights and Business

Commentary: "How elephants can dance: Unilever’s human rights report sets a new benchmark for business"

Given the EU’s recent non-financial reporting requirement concerning its 6,000 largest publicly listed companies, which certainly includes Unilever, today’s report will inevitably be seen as a benchmark. This requirement, as well as others wordwide, will help ensure that human rights reporting is now here to stay...What makes Unilever’s report so special? A number of aspects are of particular importance in my view:

First, the report makes explicit the process the company went through to decide which were its most salient human rights impacts – not just from the perspective of the company but from the perspective of those who may be impacted by its activities...Second, some of these impacts are well outside of the company’s direct control and address more systemic issues...Third, I am especially pleased to see the issue of workplace harassment being given particular prominence in the report and in particular the section dedicated to Kericho in Kenya...Finally, it perhaps goes without saying, but in Paul Polman – Unilever actually has a CEO who understands the value of human rights to his company...

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