Case study: Unilever plc

Unilever plc achieved a score of 25 out of 26 in the 2020 Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB) and was ranked in joint first place in the benchmarking assessment. Unilever describes itself as “a global company selling fast-moving consumer goods. Our purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. We make around 400 brands. Shoppers buy them in more than 190 countries.”

Unilever kindly provided the following responses to a series of questions on its approach to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights:

Please outline Unilever’s commitment to respect Human Rights

"We know that social inequality and climate change remain the biggest challenges of our time – so in early 2021 we announced commitments and actions that would take us a step further towards the fairer and more socially inclusive world we want to see. These social ambitions build on our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan which ran until 2020 and are informed and driven by our continuing journey to embed human rights across our business making human rights the foundation of our business strategy.

Human Rights Policy Commitment

In line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we base our human rights policy commitment on the International Bill of Human Rights (consisting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) and the principles concerning fundamental rights set out in the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We follow the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and are a founding signatory to the United Nations Global Compact. We are committed to respecting all internationally recognised human rights as relevant to our operations.

Our principle is that where national law and international human rights standards differ, we will follow the higher standard; where they are in conflict, we will adhere to national law, while seeking ways to respect international human rights to the greatest extent possible.

We believe a strong policy framework is an essential precursor to embedding human rights into our business. It helps us set clear and consistent expectations and allows us to enforce compliance, so at heart they are about driving positive behaviour aligned with our values. They also enable our employees to work with partners, governments, community leaders and other stakeholders to push standards and boundaries where needed. They enable us to operationalise the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) and embed them into our business.

In 2014, we launched a stand-alone Human Rights Policy Statement to articulate how we approach our responsibility to respect human rights across our value chain and help guide how we address impacts, including remediation and governance. Created as a living document, adaptable as realities shift and translated into 12 languages, the Statement was finalised after consultations with key external stakeholders, colleagues in our legal, human resources, sustainability and communications teams, and approved by members of the Unilever Leadership Executive.

Top Tip: Realise that respecting and promoting human rights is an on-going process that never finishes. The world keeps changing and so do the human rights risks to people so keep adapting and remain vigilant."

What does the governance of human rights look like in Unilever?

"We believe that human rights are at the heart of sustainable business, and our human rights work does not exist in isolation within Unilever. It is increasingly integrated throughout the business, with our markets, brands and people in all functions continually improving the ways they advance respect for human rights.

Our human rights governance is led from the top, overseen by our CEO and supported by our Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE), the most senior leaders of our business. As well as providing strategic direction, the ULE is consulted on human rights issues when the severity of an actual or potential impact is high, where a business-critical decision needs to be taken, or where substantial financial investment may be needed to address an impact. Additional Board- level oversight is provided by the Corporate Responsibility Committee.

At a strategic and operational level, Unilever’s human rights work is led by the Global Vice President, Integrated Social Sustainability. Monitoring third- party compliance to the mandatory standards of our Responsible Sourcing Policy (RSP) is now delivered by our Legal – Business Integrity function. Our Integrated Social Sustainability team focuses on addressing the root causes of endemic business and human rights issues and social impact programmes, and on working with our suppliers on critical and endemic issues to move from good to best practice.

The Procurement Business Integrity Committee (PBIC) is a tripartite internal body comprising representatives from Supply Chain (including Procurement), Business Integrity and Human Resources. It provides guidance and direction on difficult and complex situations where remediation, escalation and sanctions are required with respect to sourcing in line with our RSP. The PBIC is the final arbiter for these cases and is responsible for upholding the principles that govern the implementation of the RSP by the Procurement function, and for ensuring a consistent, fair and appropriate approach.

Our Sustainability Advisory Council is a key channel for gathering external insight and advice from independent specialists. It is chaired by our Chief Sustainability Officer, and among its distinguished expert members is Professor John Ruggie, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, who joined in 2019. Our Sustainable Sourcing Advisory Board provides independent advice and judgement and helps strengthen policy-making within Unilever."

How has Unilever embedded your commitment to human rights into your company’s DNA?

"We’ll only succeed in embedding human rights across our business if everyone understands how, and why, they matter in their day-to-day jobs. That means communicating on human rights to everyone in Unilever, as we do through articles on our internal Yammer site and other internal news sites and learning platforms. It also means creating and delivering training that brings the issues to life. In 2019, we developed a new five-stage training programme on business and human rights, using webinars, film and face-to-face modules to provide both an overview and deep-dive training into specific issues at regional level. We piloted this in the USA and Singapore with the aim of rolling it out globally.

We run various training sessions related to our Responsible Sourcing Policy (RSP) and Responsible Business Partner Policy (RBPP). In 2017, we created RSP champions in our Procurement team. These champions are the first contact point for their colleagues, helping to strengthen implementation of the RSP and our ongoing due diligence. We also run training on specific issues such as responsible recruitment and addressing gender-based violence."

Has Unilever identified its salient human rights issues (i.e. the most severe human rights issues connected to your company)? What are those issues?

"In the lead up to our first human rights report in 2015, we worked with a range of expert external stakeholders and internal leaders to identify where, and how, our business activities could result in salient human rights risks. In our 2015 Report we gave an introduction to each issue and how we were responding to it. These issues were:

• discrimination
• fair wages
• forced labour
• freedom of association
• harassment
• health and safety
• land rights
• working hours

In our 2017 Report, we gave progress highlights of our work and outcomes, and linked them to the SDGs. We have reported annually on our progress on our global website.

We have conducted a review of the global salient issues and conducted regional stakeholder consultations to map out relevance and impact at the regional level. As a result, we are putting comprehensive multi-year action plans in place.

As well as addressing the salient issues we’ve identified, we know we need to keep monitoring them to make sure they’re still relevant. Are there any new, emerging issues we need to consider – such as those relating to technology or new ways of working? And if so, are these relevant globally? Or do we need to take a more local approach?

To answer this, we re-mapped our salient issues in our country clusters so we can focus our efforts on what matters most in those countries.

We know that regular engagement with rights-holders and their representatives and other stakeholders is critical to keeping our salient issues under review and needs to be an ongoing process."

What actions are you taking to manage these issues?

"We take various actions to address our salient human rights issues . This is an on-going process as we engage with our suppliers, other business partners and with communities, along with multi-stakeholder initiatives and industry associations to make progress on systemic issues such as discrimination, low wages, excessive working hours, unrecognised land rights, and lack of freedom of association, among others."

Can you share any examples of progress against the issues?

"One of our key commitments is that everyone who directly provides goods and services to Unilever will earn a living wage or a living income by 2030.

We believe this is a vital contribution to the global effort to eradicate poverty wages from value chains, and an enabler for advancing respect for human rights in many areas. And it is a critical step forward for the work we are doing to advance human rights throughout our value chain, showing the evolution of our human rights strategy from ‘doing no harm’ to ‘doing good’.

A living wage is sufficient to afford a decent standard of living for a family’s basic needs including food, water, housing, education, healthcare, transportation, clothing and other essential needs including provision for unexpected events.

Enabling people to earn a living wage will support and help stimulate economic recovery in the communities where we operate. This in turn will fuel consumer demand and kickstart the engine of responsible and sustainable economic growth.

We have already achieved our commitment to providing a living wage to our direct employees. As we extend our ambition, we will focus on the most vulnerable workers in manufacturing and agriculture, working with stakeholders to create systemic solutions to raising living standards through purchasing practices, collaboration and advocacy wherever we operate

Some examples of work already done towards this goal include:

• implementing our internal policy on the Sustainable Employment of Temporary Workers. This required in-sourced third-party temporary workers in our manufacturing sites to be given comparable terms and conditions, including the payment of a Living Wage
• became Chair of the Ethical Tea Partnership Living Wage Working Group in order to drive progress on fair wages in the tea supply chain
• making progress on closing the net living wage gap for tea workers in Malawi through working with others as part of the Malawi 2020 Programme. This means that tea workers on tea plantations in Malawi now earn considerably more than the country’s minimum wage. The partnership has developed a sustainable procurement model, which members of the partnership will look to replicate in other tea-sourcing locations. The partnership will externally verify that increased payment to suppliers, linked to increased quality, will be passed on to workers
• continuing to work with suppliers to move from minimum to living wages. In Brazil, for example, a supplier audit observed that workers travelling to a remote location received no free transport or transport allowance, and that paying for their own transport amounted to 20% of their wages. This affected their ability to earn a wage which met their basic needs and discretionary income. Our local team discussed the issue with the supplier, and as a result, transportation is now being provided to workers"

Have you engaged any directly affected stakeholders on these issues? If yes, which stakeholders and how?

"Unilever engages with a range of stakeholders.. Our 2021 Human Rights Report provides information on actions in this area that we have taken.

We have learnt that it is vitally important to understand the needs of different groups of people and how best to reach them. For example, it is very difficult physically to reach some remote communities in order to understand the situation on the ground and any negative human rights impacts. One of the areas we are exploring is the idea of ‘ground-truthing’ – collecting data directly from the field as a way to independently verify information, using different ways of engagement. We are also exploring technology to connect with workers to identify and address risks of abuse and exploitation."

Has Unilever provided any remedy related to human rights impacts by your company? If yes, can you describe the process and outcome?

"In 2016 we successfully bid for a Rwandan government concession to set up a tea-processing factory and commercial estates that will support extensive smallholder tea development in South-West Rwanda. The project transformed one of the poorest areas of Rwanda and will provide financial and agricultural support to smallholder farmers. The land for the core estate and factory site is leased by Unilever and was expropriated by the government for the project. As a condition of the bid, we required that land acquisition and resettlement was implemented in line with International Finance Corporation (IFC) Performance Standards. External experts independently verified that the Resettlement Action Plan (including the Livelihoods Restoration Plan and Grievance Mechanism) properly ensured that potentially affected persons and communities were identified and engaged and appropriate remedial measures were in place."

Through what means can the company receive complaints or concerns related to human rights impacts?

"We encourage all our employees and third parties to speak up, without fear of retaliation and in strict confidence (or anonymously if they prefer), regarding any concerns about Code issues. Encouraging people to speak up early helps us manage risk and builds trust in our business. Likewise, by communicating the number of substantiated breaches and dismissals each year we make ‘living the Code’ a very visible part of our culture.

We invite employees to discuss concerns directly with their line manager, Business Integrity Officer or a member of their local leadership wherever possible. Employees can also use an externally-hosted confidential Code Support Line (a ‘whistle-blowing’ line) – on the phone or internet. All our Business Integrity awareness and learning materials highlight these channels.

We have sought to strengthen our grievance mechanisms and the ways in which people can gain access to remedy. That includes through our Code procedures, and through our Code Support Line, which is open to third parties. Our RSP includes information on grievance mechanisms, and our specific palm oil grievance mechanism is open to anyone in our palm oil value chain."

Would you like to offer any words of encouragement or wisdom to companies that have yet to embark on the Business and Human Rights journey?

"We do not have all the answers, we still have a long way to go and we are always learning from others.

• there is plenty of helpful expert guidance available for businesses, and collaboration with others – including other companies, civil society, trade unions and expert organisations is key
• it is important to work out what your salient human rights issues are start to map out where these intersect with your business
• set priorities and review your own policies and processes
• good management systems are key to human rights due diligence
• engage with, and listen to and learn from, rights-holders"