Session
Organizer 1: Gayatri Khandhadai, 🔒
Organizer 2: Tayrine dos Santos Dias, WBA
Organizer 3: Veit Meredith, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Organizer 2: Tayrine dos Santos Dias, WBA
Organizer 3: Veit Meredith, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
Speaker 1: Gayatri Khandhadai, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: nathalie stadelmann, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 3: Tayrine dos Santos Dias, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 2: nathalie stadelmann, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 3: Tayrine dos Santos Dias, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Moderator
Gayatri Khandhadai, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Online Moderator
Veit Meredith, Civil Society, Eastern European Group
Rapporteur
Tayrine dos Santos Dias, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Format
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: A roundtable workshop is the best format to present the findings of the study BHRRC and WBA are conducting together, engaging both policymakers, investors, CSOs and multilateral institutions in better understanding the intersections of the tech sector operations and its corporate accountability performance and the positive and negative gendered impacts connected to their business activities. The workshop will present insights for companies, investors and CSOs to identify and implement leading practices to adopt a gender-sensitive approach in the tech sector. Our focus on multiple industries and the sector's value chain will also help these stakeholders to identify key gaps in the sector at the global level, prioritize actions and target recommendations to influence companies to address pressing issues that affect the most marginalized gender-diverse collectives.
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: A roundtable workshop is the best format to present the findings of the study BHRRC and WBA are conducting together, engaging both policymakers, investors, CSOs and multilateral institutions in better understanding the intersections of the tech sector operations and its corporate accountability performance and the positive and negative gendered impacts connected to their business activities. The workshop will present insights for companies, investors and CSOs to identify and implement leading practices to adopt a gender-sensitive approach in the tech sector. Our focus on multiple industries and the sector's value chain will also help these stakeholders to identify key gaps in the sector at the global level, prioritize actions and target recommendations to influence companies to address pressing issues that affect the most marginalized gender-diverse collectives.
Policy Question(s)
How are tech companies impacting gender equality across their value chain—from workplace policies to supply chains, product design, and end-use effects? What should tech companies be doing to fulfil their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)?
What actions need to be taken to ensure that tech companies are held accountable for their gendered human rights impacts?
What will participants gain from attending this session? The session plan is to have a 30 minute introduction to the topic by WBA, BHRRC and B-Tech with an investor representative explaining key concerns for them and measures they take to ensure gender related concerns are addressed by their investees. This will be followed by a break out to three groups, each lead by WBA, BHRRC and B-Tech to discuss the questions above. The participants will come back for a 30 minute exchange on key recommendations of each group.
Participants will leave with having:
- Garnered a deeper understanding of gendered impacts of the tech sector across the value chain.
- Insights from case studies on gender-responsive human rights due diligence from different sectors.
- Contributed concrete strategies for companies, investors, policymakers, and civil society to drive systemic change.
Description:
Tech companies are shaping the digital future, but how are they impacting gender equality across their value chain—from workplace policies to supply chains, product design, and end-use effects? What should companies be doing to fulfil their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)? This workshop moves beyond identifying harms that women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals face from digital technologies. Instead, it interrogates the role of tech companies in perpetuating or addressing these harms. The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) have long tracked tech companies' human rights performance. WBA’s benchmarking of 200 major digital companies assesses their commitments and actions—including a recent gender-focused assessment—while BHRRC’s database maps allegations, company policies, and responses. With over two-thirds of WBA-assessed companies also appearing in BHRRC’s allegations database, both organizations have joined forces to analyze corporate operations, commitments, and gender-related complaints across the tech sector. Our collaboration provides a holistic view of gendered human rights impacts—from supply chains to product design and end-use effects—offering policymakers, investors, responsible companies and CSOs a powerful tool to drive corporate accountability for gender justice. Bringing together experts from business, corporate accountability, gender justice, and international policy, we will explore: - Corporate accountability gaps: Where companies are failing and how they must integrate gender-sensitive human rights due diligence (HRDD). - Rankings and corporate conduct: How benchmarks like the WBA Digital Inclusion Benchmark and BHRRC’s tracking can better incorporate gender-related considerations to drive accountability. - International mechanisms and advocacy: How international mechanisms can push states to hold tech companies accountable for their gendered impacts. To facilitate an informed exchange participants will be provided access to reports, analysis, rankings and submissions relating to corporate accountability of the sector and gender.
Tech companies are shaping the digital future, but how are they impacting gender equality across their value chain—from workplace policies to supply chains, product design, and end-use effects? What should companies be doing to fulfil their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)? This workshop moves beyond identifying harms that women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals face from digital technologies. Instead, it interrogates the role of tech companies in perpetuating or addressing these harms. The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) and the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) have long tracked tech companies' human rights performance. WBA’s benchmarking of 200 major digital companies assesses their commitments and actions—including a recent gender-focused assessment—while BHRRC’s database maps allegations, company policies, and responses. With over two-thirds of WBA-assessed companies also appearing in BHRRC’s allegations database, both organizations have joined forces to analyze corporate operations, commitments, and gender-related complaints across the tech sector. Our collaboration provides a holistic view of gendered human rights impacts—from supply chains to product design and end-use effects—offering policymakers, investors, responsible companies and CSOs a powerful tool to drive corporate accountability for gender justice. Bringing together experts from business, corporate accountability, gender justice, and international policy, we will explore: - Corporate accountability gaps: Where companies are failing and how they must integrate gender-sensitive human rights due diligence (HRDD). - Rankings and corporate conduct: How benchmarks like the WBA Digital Inclusion Benchmark and BHRRC’s tracking can better incorporate gender-related considerations to drive accountability. - International mechanisms and advocacy: How international mechanisms can push states to hold tech companies accountable for their gendered impacts. To facilitate an informed exchange participants will be provided access to reports, analysis, rankings and submissions relating to corporate accountability of the sector and gender.
Expected Outcomes
This session's expected outcome are a secondary report with the key learnings and conclusions from the workshop, and an engagement process with policymakers and investors to communicate the results and recommendations drawn from both the study and the workshop. The secondary report aforementioned will be added to a longer report with the results from our case studies, in the following formats: 1) a report for policymakers; 2) a short report for investors; 3) infographics and short pieces to engage civil society organizations.
Hybrid Format: To provide a more inclusive experience for participants on-site and online, the event is going to livestreamed, and an online moderator will collect questions from the audience to be answered in the discussion part of the session. The onsite moderator will be in close contact with the online moderator to field questions or feedback to the respective groups. The online moderator will host the interactive discussion with the participants on the link to gather their feedback to the three questions that the onsite participants will be discussing. This feedback will be added to the open discussion in the last 30 minutes. The participants will use a whiteboard or similar tool that is most accessible by all which will be shared on the onsite moderators’ s screen to facilitate organizing ideas that are shared by the participants.