Diversified miner Glencore’s 2019 Human Rights Report states that the company continued to make progress with its approach to human rights, focusing on four work programmes.
Glencore group head of sustainability Anna Krutikov on June 19 said the company’s report detailed its approach to managing risks to human rights, key activities and learnings during the year.
It also provides an overview of the human rights risks identified by the group as salient to its business, which are those where its business activities could have the biggest negative impact on human rights.
The first of the four work programmes is supply chain due diligence. Glencore published its Supplier Standards and worked with its commodity department teams to embed their enhanced due diligence requirements in its contracts, tools and processes.
The second work programme related to training. Glencore ran three-day workshops for its African and South American teams to build a stronger understanding of the risks relating to security and human rights.
The third programme was that of grievance mechanisms. Glencore began to review its group and local grievance mechanisms to deliver consistent performance group-wide.
The group also started to update its internal guidance to align with the revised International Council on Metals and Mining’s guidance on Handling and Resolving Local-level Concerns and Grievances.
The last programme, that of incident reporting and investigation, entailed Glencore rolling out a new process for reporting social and human rights incidents that aligns with the well-established approach for reporting health and safety incidents.
“Our new approach has raised awareness on the importance of tracking, investigating and managing social and human rights incidents,” said Krutikov.
She noted that while the company was making progress in many areas, it had recognised that it had much more work to do.
“Civil society’s expectations for corporates to demonstrate respect for human rights continue to evolve rapidly. We are working within Glencore, as well as with our peers and external stakeholders, to strengthen our approach and improve our performance.
"During 2020, we are developing a dedicated Human Rights Risk Framework to assess the level of human rights risks at our assets and determine the actions required to manage those risks. We will also continue to implement our enhanced approach to due diligence across our supply chain,” she said.
Over the coming weeks, Glencore will also be publishing a standalone report on water, as well as its yearly payments to government report and modern slavery statement.
Krutikov said the company produced these publications to meet the varying information requests and stakeholder queries that it regularly receives.
“As we publish our 2019 Human Rights Report, the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic is ongoing. From the pandemic’s outset, we have prioritised the health and wellbeing of our workforce, as well as the communities living around our assets.
"We have formulated our response in partnership with expert medical advisors and it takes into account advice from governments in our operating countries and global bodies such as the World Health Organisation,” she said.
In early April, Glencore launched a $25-million Community Support Fund to complement the existing efforts by its local teams to provide the support their communities need during the pandemic.
Glencore has designed the fund to be flexible and responsive and it is initially prioritising assistance to local health authorities and community organisations and their responses to the immediate impacts of the crisis.
“Initiatives such as access to clean water, hygiene products and medical equipment will be important in some regions. In others, our efforts may focus on enabling students to continue learning while schools are closed.
"We take our responsibility to respect human rights seriously. We are committed to upholding and promoting respect for human rights across Glencore and throughout our value chain to enable universal access to basic rights and freedoms,” Krutikov said.