The first-ever ranking of the world's largest publicly listed companies on their human rights performance, the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) has been launched beginning with a pilot benchmark process. The final scores will be available in November this year.

The 2016 pilot benchmark will rank the top 100 companies in the agricultural products, apparel, and extractive industries using a rigorous methodology, developed over two years and in consultation with over 400 companies, industry associations, investors, governments, civil society representatives, academics and lawyers. The final methodology report is now published and the CHRB disclosure platform is open to receive submissions from selected companies until 15 May 2016.

Steve Waygood, chief responsible investment officer, Aviva Investors and chair, corporate human rights benchmark steering committee writing in the foreword of the report said although how companies are managing human rights is an important commercial issue and of material importance to  shareholders there has not been publicly available way of identifying how companies are performing and this new benchmark aims to correct this.

He said the scores would be made public, so that the best businesses will be able to be proud of their achievements and the rest will feel the forces of the market using this information. It will be up to the owners of a business to engage with their human rights risks and improve their approaches to managing them, to ensure the company is delivering responsible human rights performance for all, Waygood said.