"Some of Australia’s largest companies are failing to ‘know and show’ their respect for human rights", 25 February 2025

...[W]e analysed the human rights commitments of 25 of the top companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), including some of our largest banks and mining companies.

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Our analysis used the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark Core UNGP Indicators.

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Our research covered the 25 largest Australian companies by market capitalisation that had not previously been assessed under this benchmark.

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Scores were poor overall. The best-performing company scored eight out of a possible 24 points. The average score was 3.6.

Many companies were found to be making vague or ambiguous human rights commitments or only focusing on a narrow set of modern slavery risks.

No company disclosed all of the human rights due diligence processes needed to identify, prevent, mitigate and remediate human rights risks. ...

Our research found that companies scored well in making human rights commitments where there was a legal obligation to do so.

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The Australian government has a vital role in ensuring that companies take their human rights responsibilities seriously. The current reporting regime under the Modern Slavery Act has proven very weak, confirmed under a recent formal review.

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