Yumi Fujita on the UN Business and Human Rights Forum

By Yumi Fujita, Senior Engagement Specialist, Robeco

The UN Forum in Geneva in November 2024 was an incredibly enriching experience, offering a platform for insightful conversations and engagement on a range of vital topics. These included discussions about human rights due diligence, just transition, indigenous peoples’ rights, supply chain human rights management, and regulatory developments. But perhaps most striking for me was hearing directly from representatives of communities and groups whose human rights have been severely affected by corporate operations. Their voices added a crucial dimension to the Forum and served as a powerful reminder of why these conversations matter.

As a representative of an asset management company, one of my key takeaways was the importance of fulfilling investor responsibility in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). As an investor, it's critical not just to understand the human rights challenges at play but also to take meaningful action to address them. The Forum offered a valuable opportunity to reflect on how investors can actively contribute to respecting human rights through their investments.

Using leverage over investee companies: At Robeco, we actively engage with companies to assess how they integrate human rights due diligence into their operations. We ask critical questions about their processes, such as how human rights considerations inform company actions, particularly in terms of remedy and preventing future risks to rightsholders. Moreover, we actively use various strategies to increase our leverage, from voting according to a social voting policy to collaborating with civil society and fellow investors to push for change.

Prioritizing meaningful stakeholder engagement: One of the biggest challenges faced by investors is the distance between themselves and the on-the-ground human rights issues. Engaging with civil society organizations, labor unions, and indigenous groups helps bridge this gap. These dialogues are invaluable, offering us direct insights into the lived experiences of rightsholders. They not only inform our investment decisions but also shape our approach to engaging with companies. Through these conversations, we aim to work with businesses towards implementing more responsible and rightsholder-centric practices.

The Forum showcased an encouraging degree of progress and engagement across players from different value chains. Many discussions gave insights into practical steps that investors can take to integrate human rights due diligence into their decision-making processes and conversations with our portfolio companies. While the need for robust human rights due diligence is clear to most investors, the challenge lies in understanding how to take concrete actions. The conversations at the Forum were a sign that we are moving in the right direction. However, this work is ongoing, and there’s still much to be done to ensure that respect for human rights remains at the core of business practices worldwide, as we transition to a renewable/green economy, and with the emergence of several conflicts and geopolitical events. The discussions in Geneva were a vital step in that journey, and I’m hopeful for the progress we will discuss in next year’s Forum.