Introduction The financial services industry—from asset owners and managers to private equity, venture capital, and banks—has a catalytic effect on the behavior of business and the economy. Its vast range of financial products, services, and client relationships ripples through every industry, value chain, and transaction. With this backdrop, the sector has enormous potential to create a global economy that puts people’s lives and the health of the planet at the center, while contributing to the implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, we live in a time in which both people and the planet face severe and often interconnected challenges: the world’s richest 1 percent has more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people, and nearly 80 million children are subjected to hazardous work—a contemporary form of slavery. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction in terms of biodiversity and face catastrophic food and water shortages as well as displaced populations due to climate change. Technology poses threats to democratic systems. For the financial services industry to transform the global economy to center people and planet, financial actors must work at every level to uphold human rights—a standard to which every individual is entitled in order to live life of fundamental welfare, dignity, and equality— and proactively address the social and environmental risks and opportunities associated with the business of finance. The unanimous endorsement of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) by governments in 2011 clarified that all companies—including financial institutions (FIs)—have a responsibility to respect human rights. This requires conducting human rights due diligence to prevent, mitigate, and account for how they address the negative impacts (or externalities) of their business activities and value chains on human rights. Since then, BSR has witnessed growing recognition among FIs of the importance of the UNGPs to the financial services industry. Spurred by the human rights and environmental 4 HUMAN RIGHTS ROADMAP FOR TRANSFORMING FINANCE