Human rights policy

Aker BP is committed to the highest standards of business and ethical behaviour including compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, as well as company’s policies and procedures. Our operations affect the communities we operate in, and to maintain public trust and meet the expectations from our stakeholders, we aim to conduct our business with respect for all human rights and dignity of people.

We act in accordance with our values: enquiring, responsible, predictable, committed, and respectful. We support and acknowledge the internationally recognised human and labour rights standards as established in:

The International Bill of Human Rights
The United Nations Guiding principles on Business and Human Rights
The ten principles of the UN Global Compact
The International Labour Organisation Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

This Policy describes Aker BP’s approach to managing human rights risks in our operations and compliments the company’s Code of Conduct. Human rights are defined in this policy as rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status.

Aker BP’s commitment to human rights is embedded in our internal company policies and reporting documents such as the Anti-Corruption policy, the HSSEQ policy, and the Annual Sustainability Reports. Aker BP’s Supplier declaration includes, among others, our expectations to suppliers on labour and human rights.

The objective of this policy is to:

Describe our human rights commitments and how we work to avoid infringements of human rights to employees, business partners and stakeholders
Clarify our expectations on the importance of conducting business consistently with the principles described in this policy, the internationally recognized human and labour standards as listed above
Improve our continuous efforts to eliminate human rights abuses

Our commitments

We focus on the areas where the risks are highest striving to minimise the adverse impact on human rights from our operations. Below are our commitments in the way we work:

We treat everyone who works for Aker BP with fairness, respect and dignity
We are committed to creating a working environment free from any form of discrimination, abuse, harassment, intimidation by or towards our employees or others affected by our operations
We believe everyone should be treated with respect regardless of their backgrounds. In Aker BP we are committed to the elimination of discrimination based on gender, race, ethnical background, sexual orientation, age, political beliefs, marital status or any other class
In Aker BP we respect the freedom of association and right to collective bargaining
We oppose any forms of child labour, human trafficking, modern slavery, compulsory or forced labour, and we expect our business partners to do the same
We respect employees’ rights to freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion
We provide fair working conditions to our employees, in accordance with all applicable legislation, and we expect our business partners to do the same
We pay special attention to the rights, requirements, values and integrity of individuals and groups which may be particularly vulnerable to adverse impacts
We respect human rights of people who work in communities that may be affected by our operations
We respect individual privacy rights and are committed to protect personal information in compliance with applicable laws
We work systematically to minimize the environmental impact in all our operations
We align our work with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals

Implementation

We expect all our employees, consultants and business partners to adhere to this policy
We expect our suppliers and business partners to share our commitment to respect all internationally recognized human rights. Aker BP’s supplier declaration also states an expectation to our suppliers to communicate these principles further to their employees, suppliers and business partners
We expect all our suppliers and business partners to pay special attention to the human rights they are at risk of impacting most and to the human rights of people particularly vulnerable to adverse impacts, including women, children, migrant workers and indigenous people
We expect our employees, suppliers and business partners to never infringe on human rights and report any situation in which a human rights infringement is suspected
We will continuously assess human rights impacts from our operations by performing human rights due diligence and propose necessary preventive risk mitigating actions if needed
We offer a system for raising concerns in situations when our operations have or can potentially affect human rights of individuals, workers and local communities. More information on www.akerbp.com.
We will provide or cooperate in providing appropriate remediation to individuals, workers and local communities, were we have caused or contributed to adverse human rights. To such effect, we will also, where relevant, provide or cooperate in effective grievance mechanisms
We will conduct risk assessment and audits of our suppliers and business partners to assess where the risk of human rights infringements is highest in order to continuously improve our efforts to mitigate human rights violations
We will communicate this policy to Aker BP’s employees, consultants, suppliers and business partners.
We will monitor our human rights work and impacts, and report on this in Aker BP’s Annual Sustainability Reports

Governance

This Human Rights Policy has been approved by the Board of Directors. The CEO is the owner of the policy and is ultimately responsible for the implementation and monitoring of its operational effectiveness. The Compliance function is the functional owner of the policy and is responsible for communication, monitoring and periodically revising and updating the policy in consultation with respective functions and business units.

For further information contact us at humanrights@akerbp.com.