Hu-Man: sustainable revolution in the world of business

Brussels is not only a melting pot of people but of ideas as well. One example is Aurélien Herquel with his project Hu-Man.

We all know labels for products which indicate how sustainable, how fair-trade or how gluten-free products are. Strange enough, despite the fact that we have millions of companies, there is no European label to indicate to potential clients and stakeholders how sustainable, respectful, gender balanced, and inclusive a company is.

Aurélien, a former international auditor with some 20 years of experience in the world of business took action. He developed a label to measure the humanistic approach of business and called it accordingly: Hu-Man. He developed ten principles based on the pillars: social cohesion, gender balance and inclusion. If companies and administrations apply these ten principles, they would receive the label Hu-Man.

Among the ten principles you find: minimum 20% of women on the board of directors, the local CEO has to spend every year one week on the ground and work together with the staff, recruiting annually one person without a diploma.

This project has now grown out of its infant status. An international Board of Directors (business leaders, lawyers and heads of national administrations) has been formed; a book about Hu-Man – the forward written by a former EU Commissioner – has been published.

If everything is going as planned, the first labels will be attributed in 2019.

Good to know:

Hu-Man