Human Rights Policy at VR
1. Purpose
This Policy outlines VR’s commitment and actions to respect and support internationally recognized human rights of the people affected by our business and our value chain. This policy is based on United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
2. Scope
This policy applies to all employees of VR and to our business partners across the value chain. We expect both our employees and our business partners to respect and uphold human rights. In situations where concerns come to our attention, we notify our partners, seek remediation and – should the issues not be addressed – may end the business relationship.
3. Implementation
3.1 Policy Commitment and Embedding
We take responsibility for the people affected by our operations. We adhere to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Rights at Work. We are committed to complying with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and we are signatories to the UN Global Compact. We comply with labour law and current collective agreements.In addition to this Human Rights Policy, other policies making reference to our commitments include our Ethical Principles, Code of Conduct for Suppliers, and Risk and Opportunity Management Policy.
3.2. Human Rights Due Diligence
Our Human Rights Due Diligence Process refers to the way we identify and assess human rights risks and impacts; act to prevent, end or mitigate them; track progress and communicate them both internally and externally. We continually improve our processes and are committed to developing them in the years to come.Phases identify and assess, act and track are integrated to our Risk and Opportunity Management: We assess human rights risks and impacts as part of risk assessments that are carried out as described in our Risk and Opportunity Management Policy. The actions to prevent, end and mitigate identified risk and impacts are tracked and assigned owners within the risk register, which is owned by the Risk Management function.Communicate is part of annual reporting and other communications: The main external communications channel on our salient issues and progress on them is annual reporting. We use internal channels such as our intranet to communicate and raise awareness of topics related to human rights internally.
Stakeholder engagement is part of all steps of the process, and stakeholders may include e.g. directly affected stakeholders, their credible proxies (such as union representatives) or human rights specialists.
3.3. Remedy and Grievance Mechanisms
We commit to the remedy of adverse impacts of people who have been negatively affected by our operations, in collaboration with our business partners.Our whistleblowing service WhistleB enables reporting of concerns about everything that is against our values and Code of Conduct and that can have serious consequences. These concerns can be raised anonymously and without fear of reprisal. The means to ensure anonymity of the concerns and the service more widely is described in our Whistleblowing guidelines.In cases where anonymity is not required and/or the potential consequences are lesser, we encourage our employees to contact their supervisor, the People & Culture team, the Legal team or Internal Audit.
4. Governance
VR’s CEO and Leadership Team are accountable for the scope of the Human Rights Policy, monitored by the Auditing Committee of the Board of Directors and Internal Audit.The responsibility of implementing the Policy and the individual risks and their actions lies within the management of each of VR’s units. Risk Management maintains the risk register and facilitates the risk assessments. Sustainability ensures that the Human Rights Policy is up to date, that the risk assessments meet the HRDD requirements, supports risk owners in identifying sufficient prevention and mitigation actions, and collates the needed information for annual reporting.
