Advance: Progress report 2025

Key milestones: 2021 - 2024

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We plan to report progress annually in 2026 and 2027. In the ‘Next steps’ section, we set out our proposed activities in the coming years, including capacity-building and supporting investors’ engagement with stakeholders.   

The Advance Assessment Framework (see below), which this report is based on and grounded in, was developed with the support of the Advance advisory groups and is used to evaluate progress towards the initiative’s objectives. The framework tracks investor activities, company performance, and sector-level developments using internationally recognised benchmarks and public data.   

Advance assessment framework 

Assessment levels	Assessment components
Investor efforts and activities	Development and implementation of the engagement strategy   Investor participation and commitment levels  Investor human rights commitment
Company performance	Performance relative to minimum standards   Allegations/controversies and company responses   Progress relative to specific company objectives and severe issues
Sector-level engagement	Sector-level engagement will be developed once the sector strategies have been formulated and details added to the Assessment Framework. Tracking and reporting will occur every second year, with the first disclosures in Q1 2026

We would like to thank the Advance Signatory Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Group for their thorough review and valuable contributions to this report.  

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Next steps 

Capacity-building

Our approach to capacity-building is set to evolve. Recognising the breadth and complexity of human rights issues, we aim to develop structured learning tracks while maintaining the flexibility to respond to emerging risks and topics.

In 2025, these specific learning opportunities will include: 

• Human rights frameworks and standards – Proposing deep dives into key frameworks such as the UNGPs, OECD Guidelines, and industry-specific standards.
• Human rights issue-specific tracks – Focused analysis and discussions on key human rights risks, such as labour rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and responsible mineral sourcing.
• Stakeholder engagement – Providing guidance and workshops to equip investors with the knowledge and tools to engage effectively and responsibly with rights-holders, affected communities, and other key stakeholders.
• Stewardship practices on human rights – Strengthening investor engagement and potential escalation strategies and the integration of human rights considerations into stewardship practices.
• Responsible political engagement – Providing guidance on upcoming standards and exploring lessons learnt from climate lobbying, along with examples of good practice across other industries, to inform engagement with companies.
• Policy and regulatory developments – Supporting investors to understand the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape, including mandatory environmental and human rights due diligence legislation, trade policies, and reporting requirements.

Stakeholder engagement

Engaging with rightsholders and affected stakeholders, or where appropriate their representatives, to obtain first-hand non-competitively sensitive information is crucial to investors’ understanding of risks and impacts on the ground and determining priorities for engagement with companies. Some investor participants were already doing this prior to joining the initiative and consider it to be a critical part of their due diligence and integral to their stewardship activities, but many are new to it.

With the support of the Technical Advisory Group, the PRI has been supporting engagement between investors and rights-holder groups or their representatives to help investors understand and consider the actual risks and impacts experienced by stakeholders and, in turn, to understand potential risks and opportunities to their portfolios in line with their fiduciary duties.

However, engaging meaningfully requires time and careful consideration to ensure it is done with appropriate guardrails. As noted in the previous section, in 2025, we will support investors through dedicated educational sessions and workshops on engagement, including how to prepare and allocate sufficient resources. Where appropriate, we will continue to support engagement with the support of an informal working group with investor participants and members of the Technical Advisory Group.

Responsible political engagement

At present, corporate disclosure on political engagement activities remains limited, making it difficult to assess alignment with human rights commitments. Ensuring a level playing field is essential to reducing system-level risks, preventing regulatory arbitrage, and fostering a business environment where respect for human rights is the norm rather than the exception.

As referenced in the previous section, Advance will work in collaboration with expert organisations to provide capacity-building support to investors, equipping them with tools should they choose to engage companies on this issue.

EIRIS Foundation Social LobbyMap (pending assessment of companies engaged through Advance)

In 2025, the EIRIS Foundation will publish its ‘Social LobbyMap’ – an evaluation of how companies within the initiative align their political activities, lobbying efforts, and trade association memberships with their public human rights commitments. This Map will aim to ensure that companies are not undermining human rights protections through opaque or contradictory lobbying strategies. With this tool, investors will be better equipped to identify and track discrepancies, highlight good practices, and engage companies on improving transparency and accountability across their political engagement activities, reinforcing the second key expectation of Advance. 

Sector-level engagement

Certain human rights issues cannot be solved solely through engagement with individual companies. They require a sector-level approach that addresses systemic challenges and engages a broader range of stakeholders, including industry associations, standard setters, and regulators. Sector-level engagement fosters alignment, amplifies impact, and creates opportunities for collaborative action on shared challenges, such as supply chain transparency, value chains-related expectations, living wage and working conditions or FPIC processes.

We have collaborated with two consultants, supported by the Advance advisory groups, to develop initial sector-level strategies for the metals and mining and renewables sectors. These strategies offer several potential areas of focus, tools and processes that the initiative could engage with at local, regional and global levels.

Starting in 2025, we will begin rolling out these strategies in collaboration with the advisory groups and willing investor participants. This work will aim to drive industry-wide commitments, promote adherence to high standards across sectors and advocate for regulatory frameworks that enable responsible business conduct.

The initiative will consider supporting engagement between investors and policy makers and regulators where appropriate, recognising that public policy is a critical mechanism for advancing the implementation of the UNGPs. Policy interventions can directly support global human rights objectives — e.g. minimum wage regulations and protections for freedom of association — as well as indirectly enhance governance frameworks, for example, through mandatory due diligence legislation, safeguards for Indigenous communities, and measures to prevent corruption and policy capture.

At this stage, any such engagement is expected to be limited in scope and pursued on an ad hoc basis, rather than as part of a sustained public policy advocacy strategy. Separately, as part of the broader PRI human rights programme, we will continue to promote mandatory human rights due diligence legislation, robust accountability mechanisms, and financial regulation that explicitly recognises human rights as an area of investor responsibility through local PRI policy representatives. 

Working with more companies/sectors

We aim to include additional companies and sectors for engagement in the course of 2025/26. We will select further sectors and companies with the support of the advisory groups and according to our established criteria. Priority will be given to sectors where systemic human rights challenges require urgent attention, and where investor engagement can drive meaningful change, without duplicating existing efforts.

Reporting on progress

We will publish annual Advance progress reports in 2026 and 2027. They will be based on the initiative’s Assessment Framework, and annual participant and endorser surveys. The sector transformation part of the assessment framework will be developed once the sector strategies have been formulated. Tracking and reporting will happen every second year, with the first disclosures in Q1 2026.

When the initiative reaches the end of its five years, the PRI Executive – with input from the advisory groups – will review the progress of the initiative and decide whether to continue to support the engagement beyond this point. In reviewing this, the PRI Executive will consider the following factors:

• The impact and progress achieved by the initiative to date, and potential further impact to be made
• Current and potential participants’ capacity to actively engage in the initiative
• Resourcing levels of the PRI and other planned or ongoing PRI-led initiatives
• Continued alignment with the PRI Principles and our overall strategy

 

Download the full report below.