I remember writing the human rights policy at ABTA when I was their Sustainability Executive and working out the focus areas. We agreed to start off by articulating our commitment to respecting human rights, and then explaining how we sought to identify, assess, and manage human rights impacts within our value chain. We identified our employees, suppliers, and our customers as a way to do that. Then, we set out how we would manage and implement the policy and importantly act, or remedy any indicators that showed any human rights risks and that importantly that any breach of the policy is reported promptly to the human resources department, or in line with the procedures as set out in our whistle blowing policy.

Once your policy is written, you could start your implementation process by assessing your current suppliers on their human rights performance.  For instance, you can run a relatively quick desk-based assessment of your top five suppliers (by spend) as to whether they have a human rights approach and then feedback these findings back to your internal sustainability committee and/or senior leadership team. Then looking ahead, you could review your procurement process, or if you don’t have such a process, you could propose creating one. It is always a two-way street when discussing such matters with your supplier, however, try embrace the notion of being comfortable whilst being uncomfortable when discussing difficult topics! Be clear and precise and of course, as both parties will be on the same journey, it’s often working out the best way to approach it.