Our salient human rights

We regularly conduct human rights impact assessments to ensure that rights are respected in our corporate conduct and decision-making processes. These assessments are crucial to identify the most important human rights risks and design consequent actions. By considering these rights in our policies and processes, we want to contribute to a culture of respect and a fairer and more equitable society.

Our latest human rights impact assessment

The 2022 human rights impact assessment is Ørsted’s third corporate-level human rights evaluation – the first having taken place in 2015.

This recent evaluation was facilitated by an external organisation and involved interviews with Ørsted employees from various departments and regions. It also included extensive document review and discussions with rightsholders, relevant stakeholders and experts.

The assessment took into consideration the nature of Ørsted’s products, services, operations and technologies, as well as human rights in relevant regions throughout the value chain. By taking this comprehensive approach, we were able to identify our salient human rights areas.

What do we mean by salient human rights?

Salient human rights refer to the rights that are most at risk of severe negative impacts through a company's activities or business relationships. These rights are determined by factors such as the scale of harm to individuals, the scope of people affected, the difficulty in remedying the harm, and the likelihood of it occurring.

We’ve identified the following six salient human rights areas:

Labour conditions

Everyone has the right to fair working conditions. From global working hours to competitive remuneration, we’re committed to creating a sustainable, responsible, and inclusive work environment that supports the wellbeing and growth of all employees worldwide.

Occupational health and safety

We aim to create a safe and healthy work environment for everyone involved in our operations and supply chain, whether they are on land or at sea. We’re committed to implementing safety management systems that adhere to international standards and best practices.

Own operations
In our quality, health, safety, and environment (QHSE) programme, we take a holistic and preventive approach to employee well-being. We prioritise mental, physical, and social health equally. Our commitment is to create a healthy, safe, and inclusive workplace and promote sustainability in our employees' working lives, and we have comprehensive measures in place to ensure this. You can learn more about these efforts in our sustainability report.

Supply chain
Our ONE QHSE strategic business plan focuses on six key themes:
1. QHSE leadership
2. Supplier engagement
3. Innovative solutions
4. Knowledge management
5. Global governance
6. Process excellence.
  The performance of our supply chain significantly impacts our overall QHSE performance. We assess risks and develop improvement plans with our suppliers based on their importance. We closely monitor the implementation of these plans and work together to enhance QHSE practices. From our frontline and fabrication sites to senior management meetings with suppliers, QHSE is a standard part of our agendas, demonstrating our commitment at all levels.

Access to remedy

Access to remedy helps ensure fairness, justice, and protection for individuals and communities. It allows people to seek recourse and find a solution when they believe that their rights have been violated, promoting a more equitable and fair workplace and operating environment.

Communities’ rights

We recognise that construction and operation of renewable energy assets can have large impacts on the surrounding communities. We believe that communities located near our renewable energy sites must be informed, consulted, and empowered, so that their rights are protected. This includes respecting the rights of specific or vulnerable groups such as indigenous peoples, children, and others.

Communities around our assets

Our overall objective is to establish a consistent approach across our company for assessing and addressing human rights risks concerning local communities throughout the entire lifespan of a renewable energy project. We aim to exceed local requirements if these fall below international standards.

In 2024-2025, we intend to pilot our community feedback mechanism and social and human rights impact assessment. After final calibration, we’ll prepare a global roll-out plan.

We’ll also publish our internal guidelines on Indigenous Peoples and free, prior, and informed consent. These will be used in our engagement with Indigenous Peoples in relation to our projects in the US and Australia, and elsewhere if relevant.

We’re also planning to update our stakeholder engagement policy to ensure that it’s fully aligned with international best practice standards on community engagement.

Supply chain

When it comes to sourcing minerals and metals, it can be difficult to address social and environmental impacts where risks are highest due to a lack of transparency in the origin of many of these materials. That’s why we’re focusing on increasing transparency in the supply chain. The first concrete steps are mapping the origin of iron used in the steel for foundations and wind turbines and completing a pilot to use blockchain for tracing to the mine of origin the copper used in components for our Hornsea 2 Offshore Wind Farm.

Modern slavery

Forced labour and other forms of exploitation have no place in the modern workplace. With modern slavery risks increasing around the world, we’re exercising heightened due diligence and identifying high-risk areas, placing a strong emphasis on vulnerable workers.

Human rights defenders

Environmental and human rights defenders face increasing legal and physical threats globally. We’re committed to raising awareness and taking preventive measures to ensure that no individuals are intimidated or threatened in any way related to our business activities.

We’ve incorporated specific references to the protection of environmental and human rights defenders in our policies:
- Our Stakeholder Engagement Policy, which guides our local engagement efforts and emphasises the importance of cooperation with local communities regarding the impacts on them and the environment.
- Our Human Rights Policy, which explicitly states that we won't retaliate against human rights or environmental or indigenous defenders who lawfully exercise their rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful protest, or assembly.
- Our Code of Conduct for business partners, which stipulates that suppliers and joint venture partners must protect environmental human rights defenders and other interested parties who exercise their legal right to freedom of speech.

Next steps

From 2024 onwards, we’re obligated to disclose our human rights due diligence approach according to the European Sustainability Reporting Standards. We’ll do this in our annual report.

If you have any questions about our human rights work, please feel free to contact us at responsiblepartners@orsted.com.

Key groups of rightsholders across Ørsted’s value chain

Indigenous peoples around our supply chain

Supply chain workers

Local communities around our supply chain

4Own employees

Indigenous peoples around our projects

Supply chain workers

Fishermen

Offshore workers

Human rights defenders

Local communities around our projects

SUSTAINABILITY FOCUS AREa

Our salient human rights

Our latest human rights impact assessment

Labour conditions

Occupational health and safety

*where it makes commercial sense

Access to remedy

Communities’ rights

Modern slavery

Human rights defenders

Next steps

Key groups of rightsholders across Ørsted’s value chain

A green transformation that works for people

To succeed in building a world that runs entirely on green energy, we need to drive an energy build-out that benefits people.