Business Principles and Social Responsibility Performance

Business ethics and compliance

OMV is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and has a Code of Business Ethics in place that applies to all employees. Although we are headquartered in Austria – a country with high business ethics standards – we operate in several countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Central and Eastern Europe that are defined as high risk by the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. We strive to avoid the risks of bribery and corruption that are specific to our sector. We also highly value our reputation. Therefore, our highest priority is ensuring uniform compliance with our business ethics standards wherever we operate. Compliance with ethical standards is a non-negotiable value that supersedes any business interest. Absolute commitment to this objective is embedded at all levels at OMV from top management to every employee. Our business partners are also expected to share the same understanding of and commitment to ethical standards. Every activity of the Company, from planning business strategy to daily operations, is assessed for compliance with ethical standards, such as the Code of Conduct and Code of Business Ethics.

A dedicated cross-regional compliance organization consisting of 37 compliance experts ensures that OMV standards are consistently met across the Group. In 2020, face-to-face business ethics trainings were conducted with 496 employees. The Integrity Platform provides an anonymous whistleblower mechanism for OMV employees and external stakeholders, such as suppliers. They can use this platform 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 that suppliers support OMV’s principles. Corporate and legal HSSE requirements are communicated to potential suppliers at the tender stage. In order to mitigate supply chain risks including forced labor, slavery, human trafficking, and corruption, OMV imposes the legal requirements and internal rules and standards applicable to OMV on its suppliers. Our suppliers are obligated to fully comply with the content of the Code of Conduct, and all supply chain partners are required to sign the Code of Conduct. OMV reserves the right to terminate relationships with suppliers if non-compliance with applicable policies is discovered or if non-compliance is not addressed in a timely manner. OMV has a process in place to ensure that parties sanctioned by the EU or international organizations, such as the United Nations, are not accepted as procurement partners.

OMV Procurement conducts assessments of its strategic suppliers with respect to Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues in order to raise awareness of OMV’s ESG commitments. In 2020, Procurement carried out ESG assessments of 16 ¹ strategic suppliers and performed 18 audits covering sustainability topics. In 2020, we paid considerable attention to our climate change and carbon management plans along the supply chain. We also shared our strategic approach and examples for improving carbon footprints with a view to 2021 and beyond.

Human rights

Human rights are universal values that guide our conduct in every aspect of our activities. We have been a signatory to the UN Global Compact since 2003 and are fully committed to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. OMV considers human rights to be an important aspect of our risk management approach, which is integrated into our decision-making processes. OMV recognizes its responsibility to respect, fulfill, and support human rights in all business activities and to ensure that OMV does not become complicit in any human rights abuses as defined under current international law.

In 2020, we conducted 1 human rights risk assessment at country level to identify and assess on-going and emerging human rights impacts and resulting potential risks relevant to OMV business activities in the country, in order to prevent and mitigate human rights risks and impacts. A total of 2,304 employees received training on human rights topics through the e-learning tool and in-person training sessions (2019: 9,241). 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 2020, 79% of the target group was trained. In addition, an internal awareness campaign on human rights was implemented. In 2020, 0 incidents of human rights violations (child labor, harm to indigenous people, or discrimination) were reported (2019: 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 dialogue, we have implemented community grievance mechanisms at all operating sites. In 2020, OMV registered 812 grievances (2019: 1,196) from the community grievance mechanisms. 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 headquarters. In 2020, we conducted an assessment in New Zealand and established a CGM in line with UN Effectiveness Criteria in Malaysia. The assessments are performed by an independent third-party consulting firm. The sites already assessed represent 98% of all registered grievances at OMV in 2020.

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

For management approaches and performance details for all material topics, see the stand-alone OMV Sustainability Report 2020. 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).