Transforming Business : Aligning Profits with Human Rights

While shareholder value remains a central driver of corporate decision-making, companies now face growing demands to account for how they generate profit. This book argues that the most effective response is not procedural compliance but genuine business model transformation.

Societal expectations of business have shifted significantly in recent decades. While shareholder value remains a central driver of corporate decision-making, companies now face growing demands to account for how they generate profit — demands that are increasingly backed by law. This book argues that the most effective response is not procedural compliance but genuine business model transformation: embedding respect for human rights into the architecture of how companies operate, not as an add-on but as a way of doing business. Drawing on original field research across the extractive, agricultural, and apparel sectors, the book documents six companies that have done exactly that — generating tangible, positive outcomes for workers and communities while sustaining commercial success. Each case is examined in depth, including its strengths, limitations, and the barriers encountered along the way. Concluding chapters distil five core components of business model transformation and explore how they can be measured and replicated at scale. Written for a broad audience, including business executives and sustainability professionals seeking evidence-based models for implementing human rights due diligence, lawyers and independent consultants advising companies on responsible business conduct, policymakers and regulators shaping the frameworks within which business operates, and students and researchers engaging with business and human rights as both a field and a practical strategy, this book provides the proof of concept that aligning profits and principles is not only desirable but achievable.