Triple Scope Framework

Triple Scope Framework for Managing Corporate Human Rights

Explore the three scopes of managing corporate human rights: your own workforce, business partners, and communities. Learn how to create order in your journey towards a sustainable and ethical business.

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Triple Scope Framework

Managing corporate human rights through workforce, business partners, and communities.

The Triple Scope Framework offers a structured approach for organizations to effectively manage their human rights responsibilities across different dimensions of their operations. Developed by Iselin Human Rights, this framework emphasizes the importance of addressing human rights in a specific order, ensuring that organizations build a solid foundation before extending their expectations to others.

1. Scope One: Workforce

   • The journey begins within the organization itself. Scope One focuses on the workforce, where every workplace has its own human rights challenges, whether they are visible or not. From addressing issues like child labor and gender pay gaps to ensuring safe and fair working conditions, organizations must "get their own house in order" first. This internal focus is crucial because an organization cannot credibly demand high human rights standards from others if it has not resolved these issues within its own operations.

2. Scope Two: Value Chain

   • Once the organization has established strong human rights practices internally, it can then extend its focus outward to its value chain—encompassing all business partners and suppliers. Scope Two emphasizes the importance of human rights due diligence across the entire value chain. Transparency often diminishes as one moves further along the supply chain, but it remains the organization's responsibility to ensure that all entities connected to it adhere to high human rights standards. The principle here is clear: before expecting others to uphold human rights, ensure that your own practices are exemplary.

3. Scope Three: Community

   • The final scope broadens the focus to the community and society in which the organization operates. No business exists in a vacuum; its operations have a direct impact on the surrounding community, affecting employees, their families, and broader societal groups. Scope Three includes considerations of land rights, indigenous rights, and environmental impacts. Organizations must ensure that their actions contribute positively to society, respecting the rights of all those who may be affected by their business activities.

The Triple Scope Framework is designed in this specific order for a reason: it emphasizes the importance of building a strong, ethical foundation within the organization before expecting compliance from others. By addressing human rights first within their own workforce, then extending these practices to the value chain, and finally considering the broader community, businesses can ensure they are not only compliant but also leaders in promoting and protecting human rights across their entire sphere of influence.