What Meaningful Human Rights Due Diligence Approaches Look Like in Practice

As human rights due diligence (HRDD) becomes increasingly embedded in regulation, investor expectations and business practice, companies are investing significant time and resources in monitoring, auditing, reporting and managing human rights risks across their supply chains.

But are we using social audits and sustainability reporting in the right way?

These mechanisms can provide valuable visibility into human rights risks. Yet monitoring alone does not prevent harm. When resources are concentrated on identifying and reporting problems, with less attention given to addressing root causes and funding meaningful remediation, companies risk becoming better at documenting problems without becoming better at solving the root cause.

This interactive workshop will examine what it takes to turn social audits and sustainability reporting into more effective levers for change. Drawing on practical insights from business and implementation perspectives, and The Centre for Child Rights and Business’s latest proprietary research studies, we will explore how companies can use these mechanisms more strategically, influencing internal decision-making and investment, and strengthening their approaches to prevention and remediation, particularly in relation to child labour.

Rather than presenting another set of best-practice checklists, the session will ask a more fundamental question: How can we make the audits and reports companies already use work harder for people at risk of harm?

Through facilitated peer discussions and group exercises, participants will actively co-create actionable recommendations alongside fellow practitioners. The goal is for everyone to leave not just with ideas, but with practical recommendations, developed by peers in the room, that can be taken back into their own organisations and applied to strengthen HRDD in practice

Session Learnings:

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Shift from compliance to strategy: Move beyond using social audits as mere compliance checklists and understand how to integrate the human rights data they generate into core corporate strategy and governance.

2. Apply auditor insights to real-world challenges: Examine key findings from The Centre for Child Rights and Business’s latest global study on social auditors’ experiences, with specific attention to how child labour and forced labour are identified and the barriers to effective remediation.

3. Strengthen HRDD through child rights disclosures: Drawing on Making Children Count: Sustainability Reporting—the latest UNICEF report authored by The Centre—participants will explore how robust child rights disclosures build stakeholder trust, enhance due diligence performance, and meet evolving regulatory expectations.

4. Build internal buy-in for resource allocation: Start developing practical business-case arguments to secure the necessary resources and internal stakeholder commitment for strengthening HRDD across supply chains.

Post-Event Actions:

The Centre will produce a resource capturing guest speaker insights and the consolidated recommendations from workshop group activities. The resource will identify common challenges, promising practices, and actionable strategies to strengthen HRDD—to be shared with all participants post-event.