Management and strategy
Operating ethically and in a manner that fully respects human rights is both the right thing to do and good business sense; it enhances our licence to operate, helps us attract and retain the best talent and avoids costly delays in our projects and operations. We aim to operate with integrity towards our employees, our business partners and the communities that we interact with and to operate with the maximum transparency commercially possible.
Our Statement of Business Principles is the basis for our approach to ethical business conduct. The document sets high standards, and stipulates our behaviours in protecting human rights in the day-to-day management of our business. We expect our employees, contractors, suppliers, joint venture partners and other business partners to be familiar with and to comply with these principles. The document is available in 15 languages.
We have zero tolerance for bribery, corruption or fraud and we do not allow any form of political donations with company funds. Our principles, commitments and management approach are stipulated in our company-wide Bribery, Fraud and Corruption Policy and associated Code of Conduct. These principles and policies also apply to non-managed operations in which Xstrata has a stake, and we require the suppliers that wish to do business with us to respect them too.
As a global company, we interact with a wide variety of stakeholders and we strive at all times to understand and meet stakeholder expectations with respect to ethics and human rights. We support and have aligned our SD management framework with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labour Organisation Conventions and the 10 universally accepted principles of the UN Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption. For an index cross-referencing our reporting to the UN Global Compact commitments and to the ICMM principles, see GRI Index.
We aim to comply in full with the laws and regulations in each country in which we operate and in particular will comply with the UK Bribery Act, the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and such similar laws existing in or applying to other jurisdictions in which we operate. In addition, we operate in accordance with Xstrata’s SD Framework, aspiring to achieve the highest international standards regardless of location and without exception.
Xstrata operates in several regions where security issues make it necessary to protect our sites and employees. We apply the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights to help ensure our security measures are reasonable and responsible, and we conduct human rights risk assessments at all locations. Identifying risk and preventing human rights incidents is important for the safe and unhampered operation of our facilities.