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Working together to address impacts

It’s often harder to fix something than to damage it.

Human rights impacts are no different – and few of these challenges can be solved by one company alone. By working together – with other companies, civil society organisations, government organisations and affected people (or their representatives) – companies can build effective solutions to human rights challenges, raise standards and improve communication and stakeholder relationships. 

Multistakeholder collaboration will not always be easy. In fact, it rarely is. Effective collaboration requires a shared understanding of the problem. Alignment around aims, focus, resources and commitment. Willingness to learn from others. However, when successful, collaborative action can often achieve stronger outcomes for affected people.


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What does multistakeholder collaboration look like in practice?

Ways to collaborate with diverse stakeholders:

  • Partner with industry peers and other key stakeholders to find new and better ways to manage key human rights risks.
  • Work with relevant stakeholders at a local level to understand risks, look at potential solutions or address a specific impact.
  • Join a leadership platform to advance thinking and practice on a high priority challenge.

Ways to initiate a multistakeholder collaboration:

  • Identify and reach out to key stakeholders who will need to be involved to build a positive outcome.
  • Build a shared understanding of an issue or problem, and the purpose of the collaboration.
  • Develop plan to achieve the intended outcome, leveraging the particular capabilities and networks of each stakeholder.

What do the UN Guiding Principles say about multistakeholder collaboration?

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, or UNGPs, recognise the complexity of human rights impacts and encourage companies to engage and collaborate with diverse stakeholders.

Key guidance relevant to multistakeholder collaboration includes:

  • Collaboration with other stakeholders can help strengthen a company’s leverage to seek to prevent or mitigate an adverse impact.
  • Governments need to be active in supporting collective approaches to tackling human rights challenges.
  • In complex operating environments, respected multistakeholder or industry initiatives can provide invaluable advice and experience. 
  • Multistakeholder and collaborative initiatives based on human rights standards should provide effective mechanisms for dealing with human rights issues or grievances. The accountability this brings can help underpin the legitimacy of the initiative.

See Guiding Principles 7, 19, 23, 28 and 30 for more.


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Insights from business practice

  • Multistakeholder collaborations can take many forms

    Companies and other stakeholders work together in many different ways to address business and human rights-related challenges. These include through industry organisations, leadership platforms, multistakeholder initiatives, business syndicates, informal collaborations and other partnerships.

    And they use these collaborations to do different things. For example, some collaborative efforts focus on establishing principles or standards to raise the bar. Some create a forum for dialogue and learning, or a platform for action. Others focus on solving a specific shared issue or problem, or righting a particular wrong.

    What will work best in a particular situation, or to tackle a particular problem, will vary. However, there are now many examples of multistakeholder collaboration to take inspiration from.

  • Start with a clear focus and shared understanding of the issue or problem

    For the collaboration to be effective, participants need a shared purpose and objective. And clarity as to the expectations and roles of those involved. This is important regardless of the complexity of the situation the collaborative effort seeks to address. However, it is particularly key when addressing complex and systemic challenges, such as modern slavery. For example, the Leadership Group on Responsible Recruitment has focused its efforts on the employer pays principle, creating a clear focus for participants’ efforts.

  • Engage early and frequently with all stakeholders

    Reach out to all relevant stakeholders, including peer companies, local governments and civil society organisations. When everyone is focused, real outcomes and progress can be achieved.

  • The right actors need to be at the table

    With the right actors involved, collaborative efforts can help leverage diverse capabilities, knowledge, networks and roles to bring about solutions. Engaging the right stakeholders also strengthens efforts to engage with, or ease the pressure on, a specific group. It can be hard to communicate the benefits of action if the intended beneficiaries have not been part of early conversations.

    As a human rights issue evolves, you may need to review who should be engaged. In the case of multistakeholder efforts, the composition of the collaboration can be key to its success and legitimacy. Creating an echo chamber will not provide the voices needed to address the challenge. Indeed, if you aren't having uncomfortable conversations, you may not have the right people at the table.

    Recognise that not every party will come to the table with the same knowledge or understanding and there may be a need to meet stakeholders ‘where they’re at’ to bring them on board. You may also need to 'myth-bust' or shift stakeholders' assumptions of each other, and remove barriers to genuine engagement and dialogue, to affect real change. 

  • Design collaborative efforts thoughtfully

    There’s no one right way to build a collaboration between diverse stakeholders. What’s important is that you find an approach that makes sense for a particular group and its objectives.

    There are a number of relevant considerations. For example, what processes will be used to ensure good governance, accountability and to secure commitment? Which participants have the time and resources to provide leadership? Are there any potential challenges to overcome, for example regarding anti-trust and other competition issues (particularly if the group proposes to develop shared standards or audits)? Some collaborative efforts may need to be overseen by an independent, impartial convenor – especially where there’s a trust deficit to overcome. Steps may also need to be taken to address different participants’ level of know-how and ability to respond effectively.

    That said, coalitions evolve over time. Whilst many of these considerations will become important, it’s helpful to take things one step at a time. Don’t let long-term possibilities undermine short-term progress or proof of concept.

    Moving as a pack can be impactful. However, having some participants go faster and aim higher can sometimes help maintain momentum. Don’t forget to review what’s worked and what hasn’t, and to identify opportunities to renew commitment and maintain momentum. 

  • Increasing leverage through collaboration takes time, but can be effective

    Establishing, increasing and using leverage through collaboration can take time – often years rather than weeks or months. This may not match expectations of a company’s efforts to respond to a situation or crisis. But it should be seen as a long-term commitment to effect meaningful change.

    Leverage becomes increasingly difficult to establish the further removed a company is from an impact, but collaborative and collective action can make a big difference, especially where everyone is asking for the same thing. It takes effort and commitment, but working together can achieve more than any one company acting alone. Allow enough time to build trust and ensure many different voices and interests are heard.

    For more, see: Using Leverage

  • Government involvement can increase impact

    The involvement of government departments or agencies can help strengthen the impact of multistakeholder collaborations. Indeed, the UNGPs observe that States should support collaborative efforts to tackle human rights issues. When engaging with multistakeholder collaborations, It is helpful for States to bring a full appreciation of their duty to protect human rights.


Looking forward: Strengthening collaboration to improve outcomes

The benefits of diverse stakeholders to work together to solve business and human rights-related problems is widely recognised.

We see a number of opportunities to strengthen efforts to work collaboratively. These include:

  1. Boosting cross-stakeholder familiarity and trust: Multistakeholder collaboration requires individuals and groups to work together – and to do so in situations where their organisations, approach and thinking can differ greatly. This diversity often means that strategies to build familiarity and trust will be needed. Much progress has been made to begin to break down barriers between different stakeholder groups in recent years. We need to continue efforts to share insights about how to do this effectively.

  2. Protecting the safe place for companies to share openly: Regulatory tools are increasingly being used to encourage companies to manage their human rights issues – and are changing the legal risks faced by companies that cannot demonstrate that they are doing this effectively. This is valid and, if designed well, such tools can be helpful to companies serious about respecting human rights. However, they can also have a chilling effect on companies’ willingness to share experiences with others, particularly about approaches that haven’t worked, or problems that haven’t been solved. It’s important that we find ways to maintain safe places for companies to share their experience.

  3. Improving access to lessons learned from multistakeholder collaborations: There are now many examples of diverse approaches to multistakeholder collaboration, and much has been learnt about how to do this effectively. Improved access to these insights would help strengthen new efforts to collaborate by enabling companies and other stakeholders to build on what’s already been learned.