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 the professional support of internationally recognized third-party experts. Safeguarding human rights is central to the material topic Human Rights and Communities.

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 2020, we were active in ten 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. The OMV Human Rights Policy Statement sets out our understanding of and responsibility for respecting and upholding human rights in our business environment. It has been approved by the Executive Board and serves as our guiding principle for dealing with human rights issues in all aspects of our daily business.

The overall accountability for our compliance with human rights lies with the respective business heads. Locally based human rights officers conduct due diligence at the operating facilities with the support of three human rights managers at Group level (at OMV, SapuraOMV, and OMV Petrom). Action plans and mitigation measures are implemented and reported by the respective functions, depending on which aspect of human rights is in question. Thus, the Human Resources department would deal with human rights issues related to labor rights, the Procurement department is responsible for managing human rights issues in the supply chain, the HSSE department is responsible for security-related human rights issues, and the Community Relations and Development function implements OMV policy related to human rights impact on communities and indigenous peoples. Internationally recognized third-party experts support OMV in conducting the due diligence on the Company’s exposure to human rights risks.

Since 2008, we have mapped our human rights responsibilities in a comprehensive Human Rights Matrix designed to serve as the foundation for our activities in this area. We use this tool to assess our human rights challenges and activities and prioritize our actions as essential, expected, or desirable in defense of human rights. We regularly review the priorities in our Matrix and redefine them in accordance with international best practice and the latest developments in the human rights field.

The OMV Human Rights Matrix covers responsibilities in the following areas:

• Human rights risk management in general, including compliance with national and international standards, human rights training, the grievance mechanism, and organizational structures
• Equality and non-discrimination, including the implementation of appropriate guidelines and awareness training measures
• Security, including preventive, defensive, and community-oriented approaches to security; clear guidelines; supervision and trainings
• Health and safety, including OMV health and safety management as well as community arrangements
• Labor rights, including decent wages, working hours, employee representation, collective bargaining, and provisions against forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking
• The right to education, including training for employees as well as support for basic education in surrounding communities
• Property and standard of living, including land rights and poverty reduction
• Local communities and indigenous peoples, including consultation based on free, prior, and informed consent, IFC Performance Standard 7 ¹ The IFC (International Finance Corporation) Performance Standard on Indigenous Peoples recognizes that indigenous peoples, as social groups with identities that are distinct from mainstream groups in national societies, are often among the most marginalized and vulnerable segments of the population., and ILO Convention 169 ² The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, ILO (International Labour Organization) Convention 169, is the major binding international convention recognizing the specific rights of indigenous peoples.
• Privacy and family life, including personal data protection and appropriate living and working conditions

OMV holds itself responsible for protecting the human rights of our employees (issues such as non-discrimination, decent wages, working hours, employee representation) as well as of the outside world, for example our suppliers, communities, indigenous peoples, and society as a whole. Our external responsibilities in the area of human rights include, but are not limited to, equality and non-discrimination, security, primary health care, labor rights in the supply chain (such as fair wages and working hours), education, poverty reduction, land rights, and free, prior, and informed consultation. We specifically concentrate on the impact of our activities on the human rights of vulnerable groups, such as indigenous peoples, women, and children.

According to the UN Guiding Principles, an effective grievance mechanism is a crucial instrument for ensuring compliance with our human rights commitment and a source of continuous learning for improving company human rights performance. At OMV, human rights grievances from community members and suppliers are submitted through the Community Grievance Mechanism (CGM) and then analyzed locally and at Group level. No incidents related to child labor, forced labor, violation of indigenous peoples’ rights, or other human rights violations were reported in 2020 (2019: no incidents). In 2020, OMV has assessed its Community Grievance Mechanisms against the UN Effectiveness Criteria at OMV New Zealand and designed a CGM in line with the Effectiveness Criteria to be put in place at SapuraOMV in Malaysia. (For more information about the Community Grievance Mechanism and the assessments, see Community Relations and Development.)

OMV employees also have various channels for bringing forward issues and grievances related to human rights. For instance, the Integrity Platform is available to anyone in the Group (for more information, see Corruption Prevention). PetrOmbudsman at OMV Petrom is where employees and management can have confidential, off-the-record, informal discussions and address issues related to the workplace. Moreover, employees can bring forward their concerns related to discrimination, employee representation in challenging environments, and maternal protection in direct dialogue with human rights managers, human resources business partners, and works council members.