April 18, 2023: A new Toolkit ‘Respecting Indigenous Rights: An Actionable Toolkit for Institutional Investors’ has identified SIGWATCH as a particularly useful source of data for investors looking to identify the impacts of business operations on Indigenous peoples.
Published with the support of Amazon Watch and built in collaboration with NGOs, human rights specialists, investors and others; the toolkit looks to fill a current lacuna in investing practice and institutional responsibility concerning the rights of Indigenous peoples across the world, and is intended to be a “guide for pension funds, asset managers, and other institutional investors”.
Lead author, member of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku, and sustainable finance specialist Emil Sirén Gualinga claims that “most standards and guidance on social or environmental matters used by investors rarely address Indigenous rights”, making this Toolkit a much-needed mechanism to ensure that the growing network of international human rights instruments and private sector standards on Indigenous rights are properly implemented.
SIGWATCH is proud to contribute to the information database and discourse around Indigenous rights through consistent monitoring of NGO activity around issues such as rights abuses linked to business activity, unethical sourcing practices and labour violations along the supply chain.
Charlotte Moore, SIGWATCH’s head of research says, “Indigenous rights due diligence continues to be something of a blind spot for investors and multinational companies, despite increasing awareness around the impacts of business operations, climate change, and even climate solutions on Indigenous communities. We hope that the data we provide on activist campaigning can help to bridge this knowledge gap.”
The Toolkit will undoubtedly be a valuable resource for the private and public sector to strengthen policy around Indigenous rights and by extension, the interconnected issues of climate change, biodiversity loss and financial risk management.
What our clients say
What our
clients say
“In our experience, SIGWATCH is one of the few sources of ESG data we can absolutely trust to be reliable.”
“Our company is based in Japan. Most employees are Japanese and we don’t really know what is happening around the world. SIGWATCH gives us visibility of the global ESG issues and trends we need to have on our radar.”
“With SIGWATCH, we’re able to absorb NGO data in an awesome way that
simply wouldn’t be possible otherwise. We can hear the NGOs’ voice, to better
strategize and get ahead of trending issues.”
“With social listening, we’re limited to knowing what people are saying only about OECD. With SIGWATCH, we see not only what is being said about us, but also what is being said about everyone else.”
“A lot is said and written about sustainability and ESG every day but no one,
apart from SIGWATCH, provides the big picture, SIGWATCH offers a comprehensive overview of what’s happening in the corporate sustainability
world rather than just a narrow snapshot.”
“SIGWATCH is a good source to show that NGOs are watching us and watching our clients, and we definitely need to be aware of the issues they are bringing up.”
