Business Principles and Social Responsibility Performance

Business ethics and compliance

OMV has a Code of Business Ethics in place that applies to all employees. A dedicated cross-regional compliance organization, consisting of 34 compliance experts, ensures that OMV standards are consistently met across the Group. In 2019, 11,144 employees participated in online training on business ethics. In addition, 514 employees attended classroom trainings on business ethics. The “Integrity Platform” provides an anonymous whistleblower mechanism for OMV employees and external stakeholders, such as suppliers, that they can use to report issues of non-compliance with legal regulations, the Code of Business Ethics, or other internal guidelines of the OMV Group.

Supplier compliance

OMV has a Code of Conduct in place that ensures suppliers support OMV’s principles. It also mitigates supply chain risks such as forced labor, slavery, corruption, and human trafficking. All suppliers are obliged to comply with the content of the Code of Conduct. In 2019, OMV performed a comprehensive assessment in terms of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of six suppliers and conducted twelve audits that include sustainability elements. OMV will follow the defined road map and plans to perform more than ten audits including sustainability elements in 2020.

Human rights

Following the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, OMV considers human rights to be an important aspect of our risk management approach which is integrated into our decision-making processes. In 2019, we conducted five human rights risk assessments at country level to evaluate OMV’s human-rights-related activities in existing operations and assess any human rights risk in potential future operations. A total of 9,241 employees received training on human rights topics through the e-learning tool and in-person training sessions (2018: 243). As professional training is essential to ensure compliance with our human rights commitment, we have set ourselves the goal of training, by 2025, all employees who are highly exposed to human rights topics, such as security, human resources, procurement, and community relations managers. By 2019, 82% of the target group was trained. In addition, an internal awareness campaign on human rights was implemented. No incidents of human rights violations (child labor, harm to indigenous people, or discrimination) were reported in 2019 (2018: 0).

Community relations and development

OMV maintains an active partnership with local communities in all countries in which the Company does business and is committed to adding value to these societies. As part of OMV’s stakeholder dialog, we have implemented community grievance mechanisms at all operating sites. In 2019, OMV registered 1,196 grievances (2018: 1,058) from the community grievance mechanism. All of the grievances were handled in accordance with OMV’s localized Community Grievance Management (CGM) procedures, which stipulate a stringent approach to systematically receiving, documenting, addressing, and resolving grievances in all of the countries where we operate. OMV’s Sustainability Strategy 2025 has set the goal of aligning the CGM system at all sites with the Effectiveness Criteria of the United Nations Guiding Principles. We are implementing this target by conducting assessments that include reviews of management processes and consultations with internal and external stakeholders. The assessments result in recommendations and tailored action plans to improve grievance management at site level. The action plans are implemented by local management and monitored by the Corporate function. In 2019, the CGM assessments in Romania and Austria were finalized and the assessment at the Burghausen refinery in Germany was conducted. The assessments are performed by an independent third-party consulting firm. The sites already assessed represent 96% of all registered grievances at OMV in 2019.

In 2019, OMV made social and community investments of EUR 20.7 mn in 19 countries to address the needs of the local communities and to support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These investments affect a total of more than 1 mn beneficiaries (2018: 900,000), including more than 1,400 people receiving training for better job opportunities or financial support to start their own business.

For more information about OMV’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and the indices in which OMV is included, see OMV on the Capital Markets.

For management approaches and performance details for all material topics, see the stand-alone OMV Sustainability Report 2019. This report also serves as the separate consolidated non-financial report of OMV Aktiengesellschaft in accordance with section 267a of the Austrian Commercial Code (UGB).