Human rights

Advancing human rights through our aims

Our aim 12 is to support a just energy transition that advances human rights and education.

We support the Paris Agreement, which recognizes the importance of a just transition –one that delivers decent work, quality jobs; and supports the livelihoods of local communities. To support a just energy transition, we aim to collaborate with key stakeholders and other industries to support the advancement of human rights through the transition. We’ll do this by developing just transition plans in priority areas and helping the workforce to develop skills for the future energy system, taking a socially inclusive approach. We aim to build stronger relationships with local communities, based on mutual trust and respect, and will support civic dialogue, greater transparency and capacity building, where we work.

We respect internationally recognized human rights as set out in the International Bill of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles at Work, including the Core Conventions. These conventions are particularly pertinent as many accepted workforce norms and standards are based on them. They underpin our own bp human rights policy.
 
We are incorporating the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which set out how companies should prevent, address and remedy human rights impacts, into our business processes.

Security and human rights

We work with our security providers to reinforce the importance of respecting human rights. We support the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, which guide the way we work with security forces. In line with the principles, we emphasize the need to understand and respect the human rights of our workforce and people living in communities near our operations. We provide training on the principles for employees who are accountable for managing security and conduct assessments to identify ways in which we can help them to improve.

Working together to respect human rights

Around the world we work with non-governmental organizations and other partners on human rights issues and aim to make a positive impact at global, national and local community levels. These issues can range from community livelihoods, rights to water, land and resources, workforce rights – including modern slavery – through to the approach of security forces who protect our sites. 

We also participate in a number of global collaborative initiatives in support of human rights. Our participation in these initiatives helps us engage with stakeholders across society to better understand emerging issues and improve how we manage potential human rights impacts at an operational level. Some of these human rights-related initiatives include:

Conflict minerals

We have no reason to believe that any gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum necessary to the functionality or production of our products may have originated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo or adjoining countries for products manufactured in the calendar year 2019. We have confirmed this in our filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.