Reporting is an essential instrument for organizations to understand the impacts of their decisions and operations on people and the planet. Addressing the most serious corporate impacts on sustainability by means of reporting effectively creates an accountability mechanism that helps organizations embed critical issues such as human rights into their business practices and at the core of their strategy. Through the means of reporting, organizations identify their sustainability risks and impacts and are encouraged to be accountable for them. Reporting contributes to internal awareness and understanding of possible negative impacts, as well as the means to mitigate them while maximizing the positives. This accessibility of information enables informed decision-making by stakeholders, including civil society, investors, customers and regulators. Consequently, businesses are more inclined to avoid or limit negative impacts and hence strive to improve performance. Ultimately, effective reporting plays an important role in a company’s success, as it responds to its stakeholders’ needs for transparency and information. This chapter presents an overview of the sustainability reporting process, draws lessons from current practices on human rights reporting, and provides recommendations for (future) practitioners, presenting a snapshot of current challenges and practical thinking.

A brief introduction to Part Two presents key international documents on human rights and clears up some misunderstandings, drawing particularly on Henry Shue, Alan Gewirth and John Ruggie. Today not only does the obligation to secure human rights lie with nation-states, but also it pertains to non-state actors such as business enterprises, universities, civil society organizations and religious communities. - In line with the UN Framework for Business and Human Rights, all 30 internationally recognized human rights are listed and deemed necessary for a human life with dignity. They include the civil and political rights as well as the economic, social and cultural rights of the International Covenants and four ILO Core Conventions. They are also incorporated in the G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the indivisibility, interdependence and interrelatedness of human rights.