Muscat Coffee Chat on Business and Human Rights
Date: Friday, 20 November 2026
Time: 10:00 AM–12:00 PM
Venue: Focus Point Café, Muscat
Hosts: Gulf Sustain Community of Practice on Business and Human Rights in collaboration with The Long Table
Register: Free to attend, registration required (Places are limited to keep the conversation small and interactive)
Join us for the first Gulf Sustain Community of Practice gathering in Muscat: an informal coffee chat on how business and human rights applies in Oman, what we can learn from practice here, and what may be useful across the wider Gulf region.
Across Oman, issues such as worker welfare, responsible recruitment, access to remedy, climate resilience and heat stress, and responses through ESG, responsible investment and sustainable growth, are already shaping how responsible business is understood and practised.
This coffee chat is a chance to bring those conversations together in an informal space for people working across business and human rights, to compare experiences, and explore what Oman can contribute to the wider Gulf conversation on business and human rights.
We are also pleased to welcome Andrew Dawson, Chief Executive Officer of Renaissance Services, as a guest speaker. Andrew will share why Renaissance has made human rights and worker welfare a priority in its business strategy, and what this has meant in practice.
What we will explore
- What does business and human rights look like in practice in Oman?
- What can we learn from approaches already being developed here?
- How do worker welfare, climate resilience and economic diversification connect?
- What can Oman’s experience contribute to the wider Gulf?
- Where are there opportunities to work together?
- Gulf Sustain will also briefly share some of its work in Oman and across the region, including work in Duqm, on areas including responsible recruitment, worker welfare and climate-resilient labour mobility.
How it works
- This is a conversation, so come ready to talk as well as listen.
- A few short reflections will get us started, followed by table conversations and time to make connections.
- No panel. No long presentations. No slides.
- The idea is simple: leave having learned something useful, met someone you want to stay in touch with, and moved one conversation forward.
Who should join
- People working across business, government, worker and community organisations, academia, sustainability, ESG, labour, climate, responsible investment and the diplomatic community.
- Specialist business and human rights expertise is not required, just an interest in responsible business and a willingness to share experience.
About the Community of Practice
The Gulf Sustain Community of Practice brings together people working on business and human rights across the Gulf to share experience, make connections and explore practical approaches to responsible business.
For our first meeting in Oman, we have partnered with The Long Table, an Oman-born convening platform for carefully designed, closed-door conversations that bring different perspectives together, challenge assumptions and create connections across institutional boundaries.
Gulf Sustain is an initiative of the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB).