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. We continuously work on improving our human rights management systems, due diligence processes, and performance by learning from international experience and good practice. We are part of the UN Global Compact Network Austria and a member of IPIECA and benefit from professional support of internationally recognized third-party experts.
We are active in countries where human rights are not always respected and protected in accordance with internationally accepted human rights standards. The primary responsibility for the protection of human rights lies with governments. However, 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 2019, we were active in 12 countries with elevated human rights risks. As a company, we must therefore be aware of any human rights impact we may have. We must ensure that we do not violate human rights while conducting our business activities. In meeting our human rights responsibilities, OMV acts in strict compliance with applicable national law. In order to ensure that the national legal framework is in line with OMV’s human rights standards, we conduct a Human Rights Country Entry Check before launching operations in a country. Where national law falls short of OMV standards, which are based on international human rights law, OMV is guided by its higher standards unless this is in contradiction with applicable law.
Our employees, contractors, public authorities, legislators, investors, shareholders, communities, customers, and NGOs all expect us to respect and uphold human rights. The demand by our stakeholders that we respect human rights defines the drivers of our related policies listed in the diagram.
Drivers of OMV’s human rights policy
