The BankTrack Global Human Rights Benchmark is an independent assessment of the world’s largest commercial banks, measuring how they respect human rights in their policies, practices, and business relationships. Built on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the benchmark evaluates banks across key themes, including policy commitments, due diligence, remedy, and specific issues such as the protection of human rights defenders, free, prior, and informed consent, and environmental rights.

Why this metric is important: To be meaningful, human rights reporting should go beyond a “ticking-the-box” approach. To show stakeholders that they effectively manage risks of severe human rights impacts, banks should comprehensively disclose how they identify and address these risks, including qualitative or quantitative indicators informing their due diligence. Independent third-party verification through auditing can further enhance the credibility and reliability of human rights reporting, ensuring that this reflects a genuine commitment to respect human rights rather than just compliance.