BSR Insight | Human Rights Conference Highlights Opportunity for Leadership
About the Author(s)
Dunstan Allison Hope, Managing Director, Advisory Services
Publication Date
November 29, 2011
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At last month’s Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference—which brought together around 500 representatives from business, civil society, and the media—BSR facilitated a panel, based on our recent report, on how the tech sector can apply the new UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
BSR first convened tech companies to discuss human rights in late 2005, and since this latest conference, I’ve been reflecting on what’s changed and what still needs to happen. On the one hand, I noticed a growing number of technology companies at the table. There are plenty of reasons for this—the Arab spring foremost among them—but the industry clearly recognizes that a proactive approach is required.
But I also noticed that the speakers remain heavily skewed toward representatives of internet services companies. There is a huge opportunity for global telecoms companies—both service providers and equipment makers—to play a more proactive role defining, as internet companies have been doing for some time, the specific actions they can take to help protect human rights given their product and service mix.
About the Author(s)
Dunstan Allison Hope, Managing Director, Advisory Services
Dunstan works with a diverse range of companies—including those in the information and communications technology (ICT), consumer products, and heavy manufacturing sectors—on corporate responsibility issues such as human rights, reporting, sustainability strategy, and stakeholder engagement... Read more →
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