"Commitment gaps: A human rights assessment of top Australian companies", February 2025

This report assesses the commitment of top 25 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to respect human rights in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The UNGPs are recognised as the authoritative global standard to identify, prevent and address business-related adverse impacts on human rights. The UNGPs expect all business enterprises, including companies, to conduct human rights due diligence on an ongoing basis.

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From our assessment, we found that:

• None of the assessed companies are fully embedding their responsibility to respect human rights under the UNGPs. ...
• More than half of the assessed companies (15 out of 25) make explicit commitments to respect human rights...
• Disclosure of human rights due diligence processes by Australian companies is severely lacking...
• No company described how it engages with affected stakeholders in the four stages of the human rights due diligence process. ...
• All assessed companies maintain either their own grievance mechanism or participate in a third-party mechanism for their workers to report concerns broad enough to include human rights.

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