View the HRCA Slideshow

The HRCA is a comprehensive tool designed to detect human rights risks in company operations. It covers all internationally recognized human rights and their impact on all stakeholders, including employees, local communities, customers and host governments.

The tool incorporates a database of approximately 200 questions and 1,000 indicators, each measuring the implementation of human rights in company policies and procedures. The database incorporates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and more than 80 human rights treaties and ILO conventions.

The tool is available online to subscribers, and the Web interface allows companies to target the questions to their sector and operations. This ensures that only relevant questions are included. When the questionnaire is complete, companies receive a final report identifying areas of compliance and non-compliance in their operations. Numeric scores are provided, allowing companies to track their performance from year to year.

The HRCA also includes methods for addressing the cultural and legal challenges of human rights, and offers suggestions for strengthening the rights at greatest risk. The standards and indicators in the database are updated annually to incorporate feedback from company users and developments in international human rights law.

The development of the HRCA involved a six-year process involving more than 80 companies and human rights groups from 14 European countries. The process was designed to ensure that the standards and indicators in the tool reflected the legal standards of the NGO community and the on-the-ground business realities of multinational companies.

The HRCA has been fully updated and reformatted for 2010. This update incorporates feedback from more than 60 company and institutional users around the world, as well as developments in the business and human rights field.

HRCA 2.0 features include:

• Redesigned interface
• Automatic tailoring to company sector and operations
• Country risk matching
• Incorporation into company and organization intranet

The HRCA 2.0 was launched in early 2010.

Companies and organizations can puchase full access to the HRCA tool, including Human Rights and Business Project consultancy or direct operational implementation.

For further information, contact Rita Roca:  or +45 3269 8851.

The HRCA Quick Check is a free, condensed version of the full HRCA tool. The Quick Check includes approximately 10 percent of the questions contained in the HRCA database, and allows companies to create a general overview of the human rights risks in their operations. The tool was developed in cooperation with a group of development finance institutes.

Access to the Quick Check is free. Download pdf

Hard copies can be purchased for €35

Also available:

The HRCA Quick Check in Danish

The HRCA Quick Check in Spanish

The HRCA Quick Check in Chinese

The HRCA Quick Check in Ukranian

The HRCA Quick Check in Dutch

The Dalit Discrimination Check is a version of the HRCA designed to detect caste discrimination in South Asian operations.

Download the Dalit Discrimination Check

The China Business and Social Sustainability Check is a self-assessment tool for companies to measure human rights compliance in their Chinese operations.

More on the CBSS Check

Download CBSS Check in English
Download CBSS Check in Mandarin


 

More information about the Consultation Process and the participants

A Best Practice Guide to the HRCA (Aim for Human Rights, 2007)

Aim for Human Rights (previously HOM) has published a best practice guide to the Human Rights Compliance Assessment that discusses the application of the tool in various companies. The guide describes the experiences of multinational companies and civil society organizations that have applied the tool.

‘Building a Tool for Better Business Practice:
the human rights compliance assessment’ (M. Jungk, 2003)