Raising human rights awareness

Awareness-raising training and capacity building are core to improved human rights performance. ABB has been working in these areas for several years in different parts of the world.

A global program, designed for senior managers in our main manufacturing and exporting countries, started in 2010 and the latest courses in 2013 were held in several parts of East Asia and the Middle East. Special training was also provided at a workshop for newly-appointed country managers.

The focus is on different areas where ABB can potentially impact human rights: as a supplier of products and services to customer projects, in the standards we require of our suppliers, working in sensitive locations, and how we engage with and behave towards both the communities where we operate and colleagues within the company.

The sessions draw on the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights and other standards. One of the main areas covered is the need to carry out due diligence to identify and avoid human rights risks, and what this means in an ABB context. Also highlighted are changing stakeholder expectations of a company’s performance, and how human rights performance can have potential legal, financial, reputational and employee consequences for a company. The course is illustrated by a series of case studies – examples of where ABB can impact human rights.

More than 400 managers had received the training by the end of 2013. Those attending include country managers and business division heads, and representatives of a number of functions including Supply Chain Management, Legal and Integrity, Human Resources and Sustainability.

This ongoing training is complemented by a capacity building program intended to strengthen ABB’s ability to identify and avoid potentially negative human rights impacts in the business, and improve the ability of trained employees in different countries to advise the business on such issues. This program, which is designed to create a global network of human rights advisors, started in 2012 and will continue in 2014.

In addition, an e-learning tool covering much of the same material but designed for a wider audience within ABB, is also due to be launched in 2014. The diverse training programs are based on an acknowledgement that much remains to be done on these issues but we are making progress.