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Home Sustainability Focus areas Social sustainability Workers in our supply chain

As part of our commitment to respecting human rights1, we assess and prioritise the impact on people and communities across our entire value chain, including the supply chain. That means addressing the most severe risks in the procurement of materials necessary for our products, solutions, as well as the services we use.

Why prioritising workers in our supply chain matters

In today's interconnected global economy, responsible business practices2  should include the dignity, equal treatment and well-being of people in the supply chain. Advancing responsible business practices within a supply chain is about ethical considerations that recognise and address these practices' impact on individuals and communities.

By prioritising the protection of workers' and communities’ rights, we can foster sustainable development3, create positive social impact4, and build a more equitable and inclusive future for all.

A man in a pineapple field

Our priority areas for driving outcomes

To assess our approach to respecting human rights and how it can be further developed as part of our social sustainability strategy, we identified (in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights) the essential risks to people in our supply chain: 

• Forced labour of workers and indigenous people’s rights in the extraction or cultivation of our base materials5 for our packaging
• Environmental impacts on the livelihoods of communities from the extraction of our base materials for our packaging
• Security of human rights and environmental defenders in some higher-risk countries
• Health and safety of workers in our base material suppliers’ production
• Working conditions of workers at our logistics providers

Today, we are developing action plans to prevent, mitigate and address these risks by collaborating with suppliers, industry peers, industry and multi-stakeholder associations, governments, and civil society.

As an example, we are engaging with our key logistics suppliers to communicate our expectations on human rights and assess the strength of their due diligence, provide guidance on enhancing their systems and explore potential areas for further collaboration on shared risks to people.

Related links

1Human rights are defined as rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status.
Source: UN (https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights)

2Responsible business practices are based on implementing the UN Protect, respect and remedy framework. Source: UN (https://www.ohchr.org/en/publications/reference-publications/guiding-principles-business-and-human-rights)

3Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Source: International Institute for Sustainable Development
(https://www.iisd.org/mission-and-goals/sustainable-development)

4By positive impact we mean driving better outcomes for our workforce, workers and communities in our supply chain, workers in collection and recycling and people in our value chain in the areas of labour, discrimination, hazardous working conditions and sustainable income, among others.

5Base materials are the materials we use to produce the packaging we sell to food and beverage producers, including paperboard, polymers, aluminium foil and inks.