Education and Outreach

Through the Education and Outreach Program, Shift contributes to public awareness and education about business and human rights, in particular about the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, through workshops, training and other educational activities. 

Workshops and Training

The Shift team includes highly experienced facilitators and trainers and we are regularly asked to assist companies, governments, civil society organizations, international organizations and others with their training needs. For example, in 2012, Shift helped facilitate a European Investment Bank-hosted meeting of social specialists from international and regional development banks, and facilitated a number of workshops for individual corporate and NGO audiences including on human rights due diligence and access to remedy. 

Shift's Legal Outreach Initiative works with leading law firms, in-house legal departments and national law societies that are serious about the legal profession’s role in implementation of the UN Guiding Principles. Shift's work in this area includes training workshops for lawyers on how to advise their business clients on the application of the UN Guiding Principles; and strategic advice and support to law firms on how they can know and show that they are respecting human rights in line with the UN Guiding Principles.  For further information please visit the Legal Outreach Initiative project page.  

Conferences and Presentations

In addition, Shift team members are frequently invited to present at a range of meetings, conferences and high-level policy events focused on business and human rights. For example, in 2012 Shift team members contributed to a wide range of events including: meetings hosted by the Norwegian Government, the OECD and by the Japanese Ministry for Economic Affairs, a European Parliament hearing on business and human rights, a series of supply-chain focused conferences and workshops, presentations to a number of leading law firms and law schools, and webinars for a range of business audiences. 

Other Activities

Shift is an active participant in the UN Global Compact Human Rights Working Group and provides ad hoc input to a number of other efforts on implementation of the UN Guiding Principles, for example through our role on UNICEF's CSR Expert Advisory Group.

Based on the work conducted across all our programs, we periodically publish reports and other resources aggregating learning on key issues. All publications and other media resulting from our work are available in the Shift Resources section of our website.