Impact assessment

For areas where salient human rights risks have been identified (see analyse risks), tour operators should conduct more in-depth human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) (see HRIA tool). Such company-led HRIAs often take place in a second step, complementing overall human rights risk assessments (HRRA).

The aim of a company-led HRIA is to systematically identify, predict and respond to potential or actual human rights impacts caused by company operations or by business partners along the tourism value chain. Based on the findings of the HRIA, relevant and concrete measures to mitigate or prevent negative human rights-related impacts should be identified.

HRIAs should include all internationally recognised human rights frameworks as a point of reference.

⇒ Click here to identify your value chain-related human rights risks

⇒ Click here to start your human rights impact assessment 

Forms of HRIAs
Human rights lens
Risk versus Impact Assessment
HRIA Tool
Forms of HRIAs

Corporate HRIAs can take different forms. Some companies decide to conduct their own, company-led HRIA (see Kuoni's examples in Kenya & India). Others partner with industry peers or industry associations to jointly conduct value-chain focused assessments.

Sector-wide impact assessments (SWIAs) look at the impacts of a sector as a whole rather than the impacts of one or more specific companies.

Examples

Publicly available, tourism-related HRIAs & SWIAs:

A list of publicly available Corporate HRIAs from different sectors can be accessed here:

Recommendations

If your company is only starting on the HRIA journey: find industry peers who have similar human rights priorities and join forces to conduct an HRIA together.

Human rights lens

A HRIA process must be guided by internationally recognised human rights. At a minimum it should refer to the International Bill of Human Rights and the ILO Core Labour Conventions. Ideally it would also encompass other human rights as necessary in the particular HRIA context (see analyse risks).

The impact assessment team should be supported by human rights expertise, and the roles and responsibilities for impact assessment, mitigation and management adequately resourced.

Impacts are addressed according to the severity of their human rights consequences. This includes considering the scope, scale and irremediability of particular impacts.

Resources

Watch this introductory video to learn how to identify severity from a human rights lens (UNGP Reporting Framework).

Click here to gather qualitative human rights information on a specific country.

Risk versus Impact Assessment

A human rights risk assessment (HRRA) is a process for rapidly identifying and predicting a business operation’s major actual and potential human rights risks, considering the entire value chain. It is less time- and cost-intensive than a full human rights impact assessment (HRIA).

In contrast, the objective of a HRIA is to explore the root causes of potentially negative human rights-related impacts. This is not possible if purely conducted as desk research. An essential aspect of a HRIA is the meaningful engagement with rights-holders (e.g. affected communities, workers etc.) during on-site consultations.

Recommendations

While all human rights need to be considered in a HRIA, a special focus can be put on the human rights risks identified in the context of the human rights risk assessment.

HRIA Tool

The HRIA tool is part of the “get started” tool and provides guidance through the process of a destination-specific HRIA that enables Roundtable members and other interested stakeholders to systematically assess potential and actual human rights-related impacts of their business operations. It also supports the identification of specific follow-up measures and the development of an action plan based on the findings of the HRIA.

As an integral part of the Roundtable’s website, all descriptions on how to prepare and conduct an HRIA, as well as guidance materials and further downloads, are publicly available.

Recommendations

In order to understand the human rights context in a selected destination and to speak with relevant stakeholders during the on-site assessment, you must first identify stakeholders with specific expertise on selected human rights issues (see Phase 2 of HRIA tool).

Use the Roundtable as a starting point to identify relevant stakeholders who could provide you with more information on the human rights issues identified.

Learn more

Find more information in the Resource Centre. 

Start to assess your impacts

Start to asses your impacts with the Roundtable's HRIA tool.