The board-level safety & sustainability committee has oversight of matters relating to human rights, including modern slavery risk management. The group operations risk committee reviews progress on managing the potential operational and supply chain risks associated with modern slavery.
The senior vice president level sustainability forum, as one of its activities, considers current and emerging human rights risks of potential group significance, defines the overall bp position, and integrates performance across the group with regards to the human rights policy and relevant sustainability aims.
Businesses and local operations are responsible for mitigating and managing the risks and implementing actions to help us meet our human rights policy commitments and relevant group requirements.
Our human rights policy remains a foundation of our approach to sustainability. We respect the rights of our workforce and people living in communities where we operate, who are potentially affected by our activities. We focus on labour rights, security and human rights, the rights of individuals in potentially vulnerable groups (including indigenous peoples' rights), potential impacts on livelihoods, and access to water, land and resources.
Our human rights policy aligns with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. It addresses human rights issues relevant to our industry, clarifies our human rights commitments, and communicates how bp’s approach to managing human rights impacts has advanced. The policy sets out how other relevant bp expectations and principles – such as those on labour rights and modern slavery – underpin our human rights commitments and describes how we manage human rights impacts across our operations.
The policy states that we will obtain independent third-party assessments of selected sites and business activities’ conformance with it, on a risk-prioritized basis. These assessments are now underway.
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.
We are committed to respecting workers’ rights, in line with the International Labour Organisation Core Conventions on Rights at Work and we expect our contractors, suppliers and joint ventures we participate in to do the same.
Our expectation is that workers in our operations, joint ventures and supply chains are not subject to abusive or inhumane practices, such as child labour, forced labour, trafficking, slavery or servitude, discrimination, or harassment.
To assist in communicating these expectations to our businesses, contractors and suppliers we have developed the bp labour rights and modern slavery principles. The principles clarify our position on a range of issues, including workers having clear employment contracts, employer-pays principles in relation to recruitment fees, and not withholding worker passport or identity documents. They build on and add to the existing high-level requirements and expectations in our code of conduct, human rights policy and supplier expectations.
We publish our labour rights and modern slavery principles online. Requirements and guidance for our approach to labour rights and modern slavery across bp operated businesses are set out in our operating management system.
We have continued to improve our systematic approach to pre-contract due diligence by making greater use of evidence-based desktop reviews and other actions to address and remedy issues. This approach helps us identify whether or not potential suppliers will be able to meet our labour rights and modern slavery expectations, if additional controls are needed, and how to introduce them if this is the case.
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 Voluntary 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.
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:
bp is a founding member of the Voluntary Principles Initiative. Participation in the initiative supports how we work with security forces to provide responsible security for our sites.
bp is a founding member of the EITI, which sets a global standard for transparency of revenue flows in our industry. Participation in the initiative supports engagement on transparency and good governance with civil society in countries where we operate.
We support the UN Global compact. Participation in UNGC initiatives through national networks supports our understanding and management of social issues, including modern slavery.
bp is an active member of Ipieca across several of its workstreams. Those most relevant to human rights include the Social Responsibility Group, Human Rights Working Group and Supply Chain Working Group. Participation in these working groups enables us to share and learn from good industry practices and develop common tools and guidance to address human rights issues and improve practices across our industry.
BSR brings together member companies across several different industries, and bp is an active member of BSR’s Human Rights Working Group. Through participation in this group, we are able to learn from leading practices in other industries, share challenges and develop common solutions to improve respect for human rights at the site and Group levels.
Based on internal due diligence, 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 2024.