Commence le 28 nov. 2022 à 10:00
Finit le 30 nov. 2022 à 18:00
Interpretation available in English, French and Spanish
Session organized by the UN Working Group on business and human rights in collaboration with BSRVersion en espanol en adjunto/ Version en francais en piece jointe
Brief description of the session:The growth of sustainable investing and “ESG” signals progress in the financial industry as investors begin to appreciate how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues create risks and opportunities. Yet the ESG field has been criticized, for example, for inadequate “greenwashing” strategies or for ignoring the “S”. At the same time, there is often no account taken of the value of business and human rights in developing ESG approaches. As investors and stakeholders navigate these issues and seek to ensure the societal benefits of ESG, it important that a human rights-based approach to ESG investing is considered and that impacts on people are put at the centre of these approaches. This session will shed light on the content and scope of the human rights-based approach to investment and how it contributes to elevating the voice of rights-holders in investment contexts.
Key objectives of the session:The session aims to:
Key discussion questions:
Background to the discussion:The Working Group on Business and Human Rights, together with the OHCHR, has on numerous occasions clarified on the applicability and extension of the obligation to respect the UNGPs to actors in the financial sector, reaffirming the obligation of institutional investors and banks to avoid causing or contributing to negative impacts on human rights in their activities or through their business relationships[1]. In its stocktaking on the first decade of the UNGPs, the Working Group has recognized that financial actors "have an unparalleled capacity to influence business and increase progress in the implementation of the Guiding Principles"[2] and acknowledged this issue as a central part of the agenda for the next decade.Mainstream approaches to ESG follow a common formula: investors identify material risks to business based on a limited set of pre-determined criteria and limited and/or inaccurate data. Social issue assessments can often appear simplistic, “check the box,” and of limited value. Complex issues may be reduced to limited criteria (e.g., diversity statistics), missing the intersection of environmental and governance issues, business models, business relationships and, crucially, real-world impacts of business activities on people. Even when an investor seeks to address risks, the formula often focuses on reducing financial ESG risk rather than on the cause of risk to people. For society, the result of ESG is often that business appear to check the right ESG boxes but their activities still have an adverse effect on the rights of workers, communities, customers, and others.
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