Our Impact
Our Impact
Embedding strong ethical business behaviours, including respecting human rights, across our value chain is fundamental. Human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to everyone, regardless of who they are or where they live. We seek to uphold those freedoms and tackle any issues that threaten human rights wherever we operate through the strong ethical behaviours that underpin our business strategy.
We are committed to upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the core labour standards set out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). We seek to align our Human Rights Policy and our internal processes with international conventions and guidelines, such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
We have sought to align our human rights due diligence approach to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct.
As part of our strategy to strengthen due diligence across our supply chain, Haleon has joined the ethical supply chain platform Sedex. All our 24 manufacturing sites have completed Sedex’s self-assessment questionnaire, allowing us greater visibility of our impact in the areas of labour rights, health and safety, environment, and business ethics. This has enabled us to identify and prioritise sites for onsite audits.
We have also concluded our annual human rights risk assessment, a key element of our due diligence, helping us to identify human rights risks and prioritise areas for action including targeted in-depth due diligence. The risk assessment applies to our entire value chain and includes a country and business activity risk assessment as well as internal stakeholder engagement.
For example, as a result of our annual human rights risk assessment, we have implemented a detailed action plan that includes more stringent screening of labour suppliers, increased due diligence in high-risk regions, and stronger contractual obligations for labour suppliers to adhere to. The plan also includes compliance with international best practice on responsible recruitment, ongoing monitoring of our own sites and third-party temporary workers and contractors, roll-out of specific guidance, and training on the responsible procurement of labour suppliers.
We expect our suppliers to adhere to internationally recognised standards and best practice on human rights. In 2023, we developed a new Supplier Code of Conduct, which is informed by the International Bill of Human Rights and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
We continue to participate actively in several industry groups, supporting peer learning and the exchange of good practice. These include the UN Global Compact, The Centre for Child Rights and Business’ Child Rights in Business (CRIB) Working Group, the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) Human Rights Working Group, and AIM Progress, a forum of leading FMCG companies and common suppliers that promote responsible sourcing practices and sustainable supply chains. AIM Progress is supported and sponsored by AIM (the European Brands Association).
Determining our salient issues
We have identified our salient human rights issues—those that could result in the most severe negative impact across a company’s operations and value chain if they were to occur. These potential human rights risks were identified in collaboration with external experts. Our value chain was assessed by conducting interviews with internal stakeholders and external organisations, reviewing key industry and geographical risks, and evaluating our existing mitigation measures. Each issue was reviewed against the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the International Bill of Human Rights, and ILO Conventions, and tested with external partners and experts.
Salient issues
We are committed to working towards:
We seek to address risks of:
Next steps
We are developing action plans for each of our salient issues and will report our progress annually in our Human Rights Statement starting in 2025.
Related
