User Guide

The Human Rights Self-Assessment (HRSA) Training Tool is designed to help you understand how to identify and assess human rights risks that your business operations may pose to people and communities.

The HRSA Training Tool helps you create a heat map of human rights risks to show which risks should be prioritized. Alongside the heat map, and for reporting and other purposes, you will also be provided with a reference to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and target indicator associated with the risk.

The HRSA Training Tool does not serve as a substitute for conducting a more thorough assessment involving internal and external stakeholders, including vulnerable groups.

The HRSA Training Tool is for training purposes only and is not intended to substitute for the more rigorous assessment of risks suggested by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 

The tool was designed to support trainers and participants of UNDP’s Human Rights Due Diligence training. However, due to the interest experienced from a wide range of organizations, now, anyone can register to use the tool by submitting a simple registration form. This allows us to have a better view of the users of the tool, their needs and the ways we can further develop the training tool.

For more information, please get in touch with the B+HR Asia team.

The B+HR Asia team has access to the information provided in the registration form. We use this information in aggregate to have a better view of the users of the tool, their needs and the ways we can further develop the training tool.

Individual user data might be used to notify registered users of technical announcements regarding the system, but we will not contact you with other types of communication, unless you sign up for our newsletter.

Heat maps are generated based on the “severity” and “likelihood” of some human rights risk relevant to your industry.

The severity of a risk will be calculated from the average of the values you assign to the scale (the gravity or seriousness of the impact), scope (the number of people impacted) and irremediability (limit in the ability to restore those affected back to a situation equivalent to their situation before the adverse impact).  

You will define the likelihood of each risk weighing the probability that the risk could lead to a harm in your operations or the operations of those in your supply chain. 

After assigning these values to each risk displayed, the HRSA Training Tool will generate your human rights risks heat map and share it with you on the website and through email. Alongside the heat map, and for reporting and other purposes, you will receive a reference to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and target indicator linked to the risk.

The severity of a risk will be calculated from the average of the values you assign to the scale (the gravity or seriousness of the impact), scope (the number of people impacted) and irremediability (limit in the ability to restore those affected back to a situation at least the same as, or equivalent to, their situation before the adverse impact) of each risk in the tool. 

Scale measures a totality of circumstances including: 1) nature and context of the abuse or treatment; 2) manner of the execution of the abuse and; 3) the status of the victim.

Nature of the abuse inflicted might involve considerations of the following factors:

• the physical impact of the treatment, for example, whether the risk involves loss of life, lifelong physical debilitation, or a temporary wound
• the mental or emotional impact, for example, whether the risk involves permanent mental illness or feelings of humiliation
• then extent it damages family and community relationships, for example, whether the risk pits one group of workers against another or leads to impacts on the well-being of children in the home

Manner of the execution of the abuse might involve the following factors:

• duration of the abuse
• duration of mental and physical anguish
• whether the physical person and/or property is impacted
• whether livelihoods are destroyed or mitigated
• whether there was forcible displacement and/or coercion in taking compensation
• whether abuse involves purposeful targeting or flagrant disregard for human dignity

Status of the victim may have an impact on how scale is measured:

• man, or woman, non-binary or transgender person
• gender preference, lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, or transgender person 
• age, adult or child
• state of health, including mental health of the victim
• disabilities status
• minority or underclass status
• whether vulnerability compounded by history of abuse suffered as a group

Assessing the scale of abuse is subject to so many factors that it is difficult to assign numeric values. The HRSA Training Tool asks that you assess as best you can the values above according to the following:

• High: the abuse involves severe impact on the physical, mental and/or emotional well-being of a person and/or communities; target community is considered especially vulnerable
• Medium: the abuse involves a moderate impact on the physical, mental and/or emotional well-being of people and/or communities
• Low: the abuse does not have long-term or substantive effect on the lives of the victim(s) nor does it target vulnerable populations

Scope is a measure of the number of people involved. It often involves an estimation of the size of the workforce impacted. However, it may also include an estimate of the size of the community impacted – for example, where there are risks to the environment, land rights and public health.

• High: large number of people impacted, often includes members of the workforce AND others, including from surrounding communities  
• Medium: moderately large number of people impacted, mostly in the workforce 
• Low: small number of people impacted 

Irremediability is a measure of the ability to restore someone’s rights. It often involves an estimate of the “promptness of action required” to restore the impacted individual’s situation to the same level as prior to the business operations that affected it.

• High: unless action is taken immediately, the impact of human rights abuses can never be remedied
• Medium: unless action is taken soon, the impact of human rights abuses will not likely be remedied
• Low: action not required immediately to remedy the human rights abuse in full

Likelihood is based on the probability that the event leading to the impact will occur (again) in the future. The more likely the risk will lead to a harm, the higher the measure, and the more urgent it is to act.

• High: the event has occurred in the operation multiple times per year, and will very likely occur again
• Medium: the event has occurred in the operation several times, and has occurred in the industry in the past
• Low: the event has never occurred in the business operation, but it is possible it has occurred in the industry in the past

On this website we provide you a non-exhaustive list of human rights risks and impacts common to many industries, to be used as a resource together with UNDP’s Human Rights Due Diligence Training Facilitation Guide and Human Rights Self-Assessment Training Tool.

The content was developed with the generous pro bono assistance of the international law firm Clifford Chance with support from the firm’s APAC offices, including in Perth, Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The list, regularly updated and extended, is informed by the relevant provisions of UN Human Rights Treaties, UN Conventions and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

Responses provided

Your responses will be stored in a database on the website as aggregate data, individual responses are not retained. Website administrators will have access to these responses; however, they will not regard them or use them as a resource. Afterall, the heat maps are only the output of a training tool. Responses provided by training participants are not considered representative of company or industry views.

Email address

Your email address is used only to deliver your human rights risks heat map. We do not store your contact information in our databases, unless you sign up for our newsletter.

Heat maps will be sent as an email attachment, to the address you specify. Results can be shared/forwarded freely.

The UNDP B+HR Asia team continually refines the tool based on user-feedback. Subscribers to the UNDP B+HR Asia newsletter will be notified of all major developments and other HRDD tools launched by the team.