19 Q 12. What is the relevance of the “severity” of an enterprise’s human rights impact to other factors listed here? The severity of a potential adverse human rights impact is the most important factor in determining the scale and complexity of the processes the enterprise needs to have in place in order to know and show that it is respecting human rights. The processes must therefore first and foremost be proportionate to the human rights risks of its operations. Q 13. What is meant by a “severe” human rights impact? The commentary to this Principle states that “severity of impacts will be judged by their scale, scope and irremediable character”. This means that the gravity of the impact (its scale) and the number of individuals that are or will be affected (its scope) will both be relevant. “Irremediability” is the third relevant factor, used here to mean any limits on the ability to restore those affected to a situation at least the same as, or equivalent to, their situation before the adverse impact. It is not necessary for an impact to have more than one of these characteristics to be reasonably considered “severe”, although it is often the case that the greater the scale or the scope of an impact, the less it is “remediable”. The concept of “severity” is discussed further under Guiding Principle 24, including in the context of risk assessment. Q 14. How is the size of an enterprise relevant to its responsibility to respect human rights? All enterprises have the same responsibility to respect human rights as they go about their business. However, size will often influence the kinds of approaches they take to meet that responsibility. A large enterprise will have more employees, typically undertake more activities and be engaged in more relationships than a small one. This may increase its human rights risks. Large enterprises are also likely to have more complex systems and procedures in place for decision-making, communications, control and oversight. They are more likely than small enterprises to have operations, value chain relationships, clients or customers that span multiple countries, making the implementation and monitoring of standards more challenging.