Beyond Compliance, Encouraging Sustainable Improvements

Full Report
Responsible Business Conduct
Jakarta 19/12/2025

Background

The current national economic transformation cannot be separated from the government’s strategic agenda in strengthening industrial downstreaming, accelerating energy transition, and ensuring sustainable natural resource management. T he entire direction of this policy serves as a main pillar for achieving inclusive economic growth while also being part of efforts to address the climate crisis and other global challenges. In the global business ecosystem, compliance with Business and Human Rights principles within the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework, as well as tangible contributions to climate change mitigation, are also important measures of business sector credibility and competitiveness.

In line with the Indonesian Government’s commitment as stated in the Asta Cita, the Long-Term National Development Plan (RPJPN), and the Medium-Term National Development Plan (RPJMN) 2025-2029 regarding the implementation of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) for corporations in support of the food security, energy, and downstreaming agenda, which are priorities of President Prabowo Subianto, the SETARA Institute and Sustainable-Inclusive Governance Initiatives (SIGI) Research and Consulting conducted research to measure the level of internalisation and implementation (benchmarking) of Business and Human Rights (BHR) principles in business sectors in Indonesia, while also providing a national baseline regarding the readiness of business sectors for the regulatory scheme to be established by the government, particularly compliance with ESG principles, sustainability, and climate change.

In addition to the urgency of supporting the above vision, the Responsible Business Conduct (RBC) Benchmark research was also driven by f indings from the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) during the period 2015 2021 in Southeast Asia, which showed that human rights defenders and human rights violations (HRDs/ HRV) were heavily impacted by and committed through activities in the mining, plantation and food industry sectors, forestry, textiles, palm oil, oil, gas and coal, and construction. In the oil palm plantation sector, the challenges faced include: a) the still low welfare conditions of farmers and workers, b) the disparity in land ownership between farmers and corporations, leading to price monopolies in the market, and c) the high number of agrarian conflicts resulting in evictions, violence, and criminalisation against communities.

Download the full English version here:

Download Here