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 195 questions and 947 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 International Labour Organization conventions.The standards and indicators in the database are constantly updated to incorporate feedback from company users and developments in international human rights law.

The HRCA can be used in a number of different forms depending on company profile and needs. HRCA tools include:

• The full HRCA database, which allows companies to build a checklist according to their size, activities and countries of operation.
• The HRCA Quick Check, a free, condensed version of the full tool (comprises approximately 10% of all the questions contained in the entire HRCA database and relates to some of the most essential human rights issues a company must consider in relation to its activities. Available in Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Spanish and Ukrainian.)
• The Dalit Discrimination Check, covering caste discrimination in South Asia
• The South Africa HRCA
• The China Business and Social Sustainability Check

How does the HRCA work?

The main HRCA database consists of 195 questions covering the full range of human rights. Companies can customize this database to their operations using the Build a Checklist feature. This feature targets questions and indicators to the company’s profile, activities and countries of operation.

After designing and saving the company checklist, the leader of the company assessment exercise can assign questions to members of the company assessment team, who can then answer the questions online or offline, either independently or with the assistance of the assessment leader. Once all the indicators and questions have been answered, the assessment leader receives a report that identifies compliance gaps. A report can also be exported into Microsoft Word to share with other managers or additional company staff.