BCSDA × WBA Sprint Series – Advancing Human Rights and Decent Work

 

I recently joined Andrew Petersen, CEO of the Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia, for the final session in our three-part sprint series, focusing on equity and the “people” dimension of sustainability.

In this 30-minute conversation, we unpacked insights from WBA’s Social Transformation Benchmark, which assesses 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies on human rights, decent work, ethical conduct, and inclusion.

The data is sobering. Ninety percent of companies globally do not reach even the halfway mark on core social indicators grounded in the UN Guiding Principles and ILO standards. While commitments are increasing, far fewer companies translate them into action on human rights due diligence, living wages, stakeholder engagement, and remedy.

We discussed three key gaps in particular:

• Stakeholder engagement: Only 9 percent of companies meaningfully engage affected stakeholders, yet those that do perform better across all social indicators.
• Human rights due diligence: 80 percent of companies fail to take even the initial steps. In Asia-Pacific, progress remains limited.
• Living wages: Just 4 percent of companies commit to paying a living wage, and even fewer extend this to supply chains.

At the same time, there are signs of progress. Australian companies such as Wesfarmers, BHP, Woolworths, and Coles feature among stronger performers in the region, demonstrating that improvement is possible. We also touched on just transition findings, where commitments are growing but tangible planning on reskilling, social dialogue, and worker protection remains limited.

A central theme of the discussion was that there is no single silver bullet. Disclosure, governance, and stakeholder engagement are not sequential steps but continuous, reinforcing processes. The shift from commitment to implementation often begins when companies treat human rights as a core risk and governance issue, not a peripheral ESG topic.

For Australian businesses, the conversation is timely. With evolving modern slavery legislation and growing regional momentum on supply chain transparency and due diligence, this is an opportunity to expand the scope from compliance to comprehensive human rights and environmental due diligence.

Data alone does not drive change. But when used by companies, investors, and policymakers, it can sharpen accountability and accelerate progress toward decent work, ethical conduct, and more equitable value chains.