Overview of issues
At times, describing “our issues” is complicated as the topics overlap. For instance, every SGI member initiative has some human rights dimension. We see all our work through a social justice lens. SGI members have been working with companies across all sectors to eradicate human rights abuses in their operations and supply chains, including sweatshop labor in the garment industry, improving conditions for tobacco workers, and promoting ethical recruitment for laborers.
In 2011, the United Nations adopted the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights declaring the corporate responsibility to respect human rights in company operations and supply chains and providing a global framework for addressing these often unseen risks to individuals, communities and companies.
As social justice advocates and as investors, SGI members help educate the companies we own about the enormous human, financial and reputational implications when formal human rights policies aren’t adopted and these risks aren’t properly managed.
SGI’s engagement
Resources
- ICCR: Statement of Principles and Recommended Practices for Confronting Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery
- ICCR: Investing the Rights Way: A Guide for Investors on Business and Human Rights
- ICCR: Effective Supply Chain Accountability: Investor Guidance on Implementation of the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act
- UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
- Humanity United: Know The Chain
- 2018 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
- Midwest Investors Diversity Initiative (info graphic and press release)
