"Press release: 90% of world’s 2,000 most influential companies failing to ensure human rights, decent work and ethical conduct"

The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) has today published its first Social Benchmark, assessing the world’s 2,000 most influential companies on their responsibility in meeting society’s fundamental expectations towards three measurement areas – respecting human rights, providing decent work, and acting ethically. The Benchmark reveals significant gaps and areas on which companies urgently need to make progress to ensure no one is left behind as we create an equal, inclusive, and just society.

The world’s 2,000 most influential companies – also known as the SDG2000 – include some of the largest apparel and food brands and generate revenue equivalent to 45% of global GDP. They employ 95 million people directly and hundreds of millions more indirectly through their value chains.

Alarmingly, 90% of the assessed companies are not even halfway to meeting fundamental societal expectations on human rights, decent work and ethical conduct. Over 30% of companies score only between 0 and 2 points out of 20 total possible points. [...]

Namit Agarwal, Social Transformation Lead at the World Benchmarking Alliance, said:

"The SDG2000 companies have resources and influence equivalent to some of the biggest countries, impacting more people than the populations of many nations. The fact that 90% of these companies are failing to act on fundamental social expectations shows the state of play of the private sector. Demonstrating leadership in creating an equal, inclusive, and just world could significantly aid governments in eradicating poverty, reducing inequality, and ensuring access to decent work for all. Regulation, guidance, and external pressure are necessary to steer businesses in the right direction."

WBA is calling on leaders, including policymakers and investors, to ensure companies are being held accountable for meeting fundamental societal expectations through four priority areas:

Companies should commit to paying a living wage and preventing excessive working hours: [O]ver 60% of companies have some disclosure on decent wages and over 45% have some on working hours. However, only 4% of companies commit to or are currently paying their employees a living wage...

Companies should be transparent in lobbying to avoid undue political influence: Only 11% of the 2,000 most influential companies have established a policy that publicly sets out its lobbying and political engagement approach. A mere 5% of companies... disclose data on their lobbying expenditures...

Companies must engage with affected stakeholders to help improve human rights and decent work practices: Only 9% of companies communicate examples of how they engage with affected or potentially affected stakeholders... Companies that engage with affected stakeholders perform better on average across every indicator in the benchmark...

Regulation, guidance and pressure are essential for driving change: Companies headquartered in countries with human rights legislation score nearly 60% higher on human rights due diligence (HRDD) than those in countries without such regulations. Still, only 6% of companies have fully implemented them...

What's next [from Insights Report]

The 2024 Social Benchmark results show that we still have a long way to go to ensure companies respect human rights, provide and promote decent work, and mainstream ethical business conduct. However, it also shows that there are many companies, across industries and geographies, demonstrating examples of good practice. Moreover, we see that where government regulation and stakeholder pressure and guidance are in place, companies have incentives and support to step in and step up...