After over two decades of incomplete but overall significant progress on corporate respect for human rights, we are at a crossroads. With the global rise of authoritarianism, narrow economic nationalisms, corporate capture, and a rapidly changing US context, we’re facing real risk of roll-back by business on human rights.

Three recently updated benchmarks help give a picture of how US companies are responding to today’s moment. A key finding across the benchmarks: a concerning gap between policy and practice.

Diving in

The three corporate human rights-related benchmarks published so far in 2026 are:

1. World Benchmarking Alliance's (WBA's) Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (around 100 companies across five high-risk sectors);
2. WBA's Social Benchmark
3. Business and Human Rights Centre's (BHRC's) KnowTheChain food and beverage benchmark (45 food and beverage companies)

The benchmarks confirm that, by and large, assessed US companies with human rights policies and commitments have maintained them, as of WBA’s and BHRC’s data cutoff dates (late summer/early fall 2025). This finding aligns with our own US Corporate Human Rights Index, which tracks changes in policies and commitments since early 2025, using a rapid assessment approach.

Maintaining policy commitments is foundational. But what matters most to rights holders is implementation and impact – not just stated responsibility but demonstrated accountability.

The implementation and impact gap is not new, and is always concerning. But amidst ESG pushback, heightened uncertainty, democratic backsliding, attacks on and disregard for the rule of law, heightened human rights risks, a climate crisis, and diminished USG leadership on business and human rights, it's increasingly urgent for companies to maintain and even reinforce implementation of their commitments. This means retaining the staff and budget needed to respect rights across global operations and supply chains, assessing and addressing human rights risks and impacts, and aligning their lobbying and political activities with their stated human rights policies.

US companies should recall first and foremost their responsibility to respect human rights. But the case to invest in human rights is not just ethical – or even legal – it’s also critical for companies’ own long-term competitiveness.

Here are a few notable findings related to US companies from the three benchmarks, beginning with KnowTheChain:

Business and Human Rights Centre’s KnowTheChain food and beverage benchmark

Now in its sixth benchmarking cycle, the KnowTheChain methodology has evolved to place a greater emphasis on practice. Higher-scoring companies are routinely disclosing steps taken to address identified risks, investigate and remediate harms, and, crucially, involve affected rightsholders and their representatives in these decisions to move towards a worker-centric due diligence model. Overall, US companies score on average just 17/100 on their efforts to address forced labor.

The gap between policy commitments and implementation is made plain by looking at average scores across KTC data categories. On Commitment and Governance (the highest scoring category for all companies), US companies, on average, actually lead the field – before scores rapidly fall behind on practice-related themes such as Recruitment and Enabling Workers’ Rights. On Purchasing Practices and Remedy – two areas with profound impact on workers’ lives – US companies lag behind the global average.

US and non-US companies alike are “neglecting the most critical elements of human rights due diligence: worker-centric monitoring, meaningful remedy, responsible purchasing practices and genuine engagement with affected rights holders.”

WBA’s Corporate Human Rights Benchmark and Social Benchmark

Similarly, many US companies earn decent marks on policy commitment-related indicators in WBA’s CHRB and Social Benchmark. CHRB goes deep on human rights, assessing around 100 companies on [insert number human rights indicators], where the Social Benchmark goes wide, providing less detail on a much larger number (2,000) of companies.

A close examination of specific US companies in CHRB finds that many companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, Nordstrom and Intel, score "unmet" on implementation-focused indicators. Implementation-focused indicators include, for instance, “Integrating and acting on human rights risks and impact assessments,” “Incentives and performance management,” and “Aligning purchasing decisions with human rights”. These are essential actions for companies to  ensure respect for rights across their operations and value chains.

Again, the trend is not unique to US companies. In the Social Benchmark, WBA found that only 10% of companies worldwide assess human rights risks in their supply chains. Less than 7% identify, assess and act on human rights risks and impacts in their supply chains. Less than 5% pay a living wage.

Yet evidence does suggest that US companies – once ranked among top performers – are falling behind their European peers. All 20 of the best-performing companies on the Social Benchmark are now European. A key area where US companies are beginning to lag is human rights due diligence (HRDD). In CHRB, the average score on the HRDD focus area for US companies is 34.1/100. For companies based in the UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany and France, the average is 51.8/100. According to Xiaoying Guo, WBA’s human rights expert, European companies are more actively updating their approaches to HRDD to keep pace with evolving stakeholder expectations, and possibly stricter regulatory requirements.

The Business and Human Rights Centre, through its US Corporate Human Rights Index, is monitoring whether and how US-headquartered companies are responding to current domestic and geopolitical pressures facing business and human rights. This initiative aims to help to protect over two decades of progress – incomplete, but significant progress nonetheless – on centering rights in business.

The weakening of democratic practice and rule of law threatens the protection of human rights, as well as the long-term sustainability of business. As risks increase, companies should invest in strengthening their human rights practice, rather than scaling back and staying quiet. The business case for human rights is clear – and the imperative for corporate responsibility is urgent.