Book Launch: Transforming Business

Transforming Business: Aligning Profits with Human Rights

We are delighted to announce our forthcoming book, co-authored by Professor Dorothée Baumann-Pauly (GCBHR, University of Geneva), Professor Justine Nolan (Australian Human Rights Institute, UNSW), and Dr. Andy Symington (KPMG Australia).

Fifteen years after the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the field has become good at defining what human rights due diligence should look like on paper. Our book asks a different question: what have companies actually done to create measurable, positive impacts for workers and communities — and what separates genuine transformation from box-ticking compliance?

Drawing on five years of original field research across six industries and multiple geographies — from cobalt mining in the DRC to rubber sourcing in the Amazon, cocoa farming in Côte d’Ivoire to diamond cutting in Botswana — we distil five core components of business model transformation that place the workers and communities at the heart of global supply chains.

The book is open access. Hard copies can be pre-ordered here: https://www.routledge.com/Transforming-Business-Aligning-Profits-with-Human-Rights/Baumann-Pauly-Nolan-Symington/p/book/9781032796307

Join us for the book launch:
📅 23 November 2026
🕕 6–7 PM, followed by an apéro 7–8:30 PM
📍 Geneva Graduate Institute, Maison de la Paix, Room A2

We hope to see you there!