About

The World Benchmarking Alliance

Founded in 2018, the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is a non-profit organisation holding 2,000 of the world’s most influential companies accountable for their part in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It does this by publishing free and publicly available benchmarks on their performance and showing what good corporate practice looks like.

WBA assesses companies in various benchmarks where relevant every second year, revealing where each company stands in comparison to its peers, where it can improve and where urgent action is needed. The benchmarks provide companies with a clear roadmap of the commitments and changes needed to meet science and society’s expectations of them. They equip all stakeholders, from governments and financial institutions to civil society organisations and individuals – including our community of ‘Allies’ – with the insights that they need to collectively hold the private sector accountable.

The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark

The Corporate Human Rights Benchmark ranks companies globally on their human rights performance. It assesses what companies are doing to ensure respect for human rights – both within the ‘four walls’ of their business, as well as in their supply chains – through their policies, processes and practices, based on publicly available information.

Human rights are inextricably linked to the SDGs, with over 90% of the SDG targets directly connected to international and regional human rights instruments and labour standards.

The first Corporate Human Rights Benchmark was published in 2017.

2017 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
98 companies across the agricultural products, apparel and extractives sectors.

2018 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
101 companies across the apparel, agricultural products and extractives sectors.

2019 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
195 companies across the agricultural products, apparel, extractives and ICT manufacturing sectors.

2020 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
230 companies across the agricultural products, apparel, extractives, ICT manufacturing and automotive manufacturing sectors.

2022 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark
129 companies across the food agricultural products, ICT manufacturing and automotive manufacturing sectors.

Press release

See our press release about the 2023 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark or send a media request.

Appeals process for the 2023 benchmark results

Company engagement is an integral part of the assessment process, with companies having the opportunity to schedule an engagement call and provide written feedback. If, after this engagement, a company has evidence or believes evidence exists that public information has not been considered in the company’s final assessment, or that their score has been miscalculated according to the methodology, they should raise it with CHRB via info.chrb@worldbenchmarkingalliance.org within four weeks of the benchmark publication (by 18 December 2023). Companies can reach out to seek clarification or can indicate that they would like to appeal the score they received. For the indicators and scores for which they wish to formally appeal, companies should fill in and return the appeals form, which will be provided on request.

In appealing, the company must specify which indicator(s)/element(s) are being appealed, provide relevant evidence and explain why the company is requesting a rescore. Companies can only appeal on indicators they have provided feedback on during the assessment process and can appeal to a maximum of 10 indicators.

WBA will do an initial screening of appeals to determine the eligibility of the appeal, based on the following criteria:

1. Companies that did not engage with the benchmark by providing written feedback on the appealed indicator during the engagement phase of the assessment (April-June 2023) can only appeal in relation to manifest errors (a miscalculation of the total score, or where the assessment says that an element was met but the points were not awarded) and not for differences of opinion or interpretation.
2. The company is not submitting any new evidence during the appeal process.
3. The claim would result in a change in the company’s score of at least two (2) points or cause the company to change its banding within the benchmark. If the appeal is about limited issues that could not meet either of those tests, then WBA will reply to the company with an explanation of the scoring and address the concerns with the company directly. This screening process is meant to limit demands on the independent Appeals Committee members out of recognition that they have volunteered their time to support CHRB and so their assistance should be reserved for allegations of more widespread errors in scoring.

After the initial screening of the eligibility of the appeal, this process is followed:

1. If the claim meets the threshold test in point 3, the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark Appeals Committee will review the claim in light of the methodology and research guidance developed for the researchers. The company will be notified that the request has been sent to the Appeals Committee, which will address the issue within 6 weeks from the date of receipt of the written appeal. If needed, the appeals committee can interact directly with the company.
2. The appeals committee will review the information and decide whether the scoring should be corrected. In either case, it will explain the scoring decision and how the decision was determined via email.
3. If a new score is agreed this will be updated online within a month of the appeal being resolved and there will be a small news item placed on our website explaining the change.
4. The appeals committee decision on whether a re-score is appropriate is final.

The Corporarte Human Rights Benchmark Appeals Committee is made up of five members:

• Peter Webster, CEO of the EIRIS Foundation, Senior Advisor at Vigeo Eiris and co-chair of the CHRB Methodology Committee
• Namit Agarwal, Social Transformation Lead at the World Benchmarking Allianc
• Lise Smit, Associate Senior Research Fellow in Business and Human Rights and Director, Human Rights Due Diligence Forum, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
• Nadia Bernaz, Associate Professor of Law, Wageningen University, the Netherlands