Since 2004, we have been a signatory of the UN Global Compact and support its universal principles on human rights, labour, the environment and anticorruption. We also uphold the International Labour Organization's (ILO) core conventions, which include the freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, and being committed to the abolition of child labour and elimination of forced or compulsory labour within our operations and our supply chains.
We have a dedicated Global Human Rights Working Group, a cross functional team which includes representatives from 14 countries – either from our larger markets or from countries with a higher risk of human rights issues.
The Group aims to promote awareness of human rights risks, including salient modern slavery risks, and ensure appropriate training is provided to the relevant people.
In June 2021, we began a partnership with the Slave-Free Alliance, an anti-slavery social enterprise, which is acting as our ‘critical friend’ in improving our due diligence processes and addressing salient human rights risks. We are working with them to map our human rights activity and draft a Strategic Plan to drive action – particularly in key higher risk areas.
In 2021, we rolled out SEDEX (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) across more countries to improve visibility of our supply chains and to undertake risk assessments. The results of these risk assessments will be used to collaborate with our suppliers to effect improvements in managing supply chain risks.
Read our latest Modern Slavery Act Statement here.
Our Australian business held an online human rights impact assessment workshop in January 2021 to discuss risks and potential mitigation strategies. As a result, we have taken steps to strengthen human rights due diligence processes as part of our Supplier Risk Assessments. We have also developed additional contractual and onboarding requirements for our suppliers, and improved monitoring. Our high-risk tier 1 suppliers were onboarded onto SEDEX and medium-risk and high-risk tier 2 suppliers will be next.
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