Respecting human rights

People at train station — Photo: Martin Adams/Unsplash

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Respecting human rights

In Equinor, it is important for us to pay close attention to the health, well-being and rights of everyone our business touches. This is reflected in our vision towards zero harm, our efforts towards building an inclusive culture and our name change.

Respecting human rights is essential for our licence to operate as a company and these fundamental principles have been embedded in Equinor’s corporate values, Code of Conduct and human rights policy, adopted by the board of directors of Equinor ASA in 2015 and renewed on 6 May 2020. Our human rights efforts are a journey where we strive for continuous improvement in our performance and behaviour.

To specifically guide our human rights efforts, we are committed to operating consistently with the following:

Priority areas

Our human rights policy tells us how to behave to ensure we respect human rights, as well as setting out what we expect from our suppliers and other business partners. Below are the four priority areas we have identified in this policy.

Unsafe working conditions
Working to respect safe, healthy and secure working conditions in our operations and supply chain.

Unethical recruitment of migrant workers in the supply chain
Working to respect ethical recruitment of migrant workers within the supply chain, including addressing the prevalence of recruitment fees, deception, document retention and restrictions to freedom of movement.

Wage-theft and excessive working hours in the supply chain
Working to respect that workers in the supply chain are paid what they are entitled to, including addressing wage withholding and managing fatigue and work-life balance.

Adverse impacts on local communities and indigenous peoples resulting from the use of land
Working to respect affected communities in proximity to our operations, including preventing and mitigating impacts on local resources, indigenous rights, economic displacement and physical displacement resulting from land use.

Our approach

To drive our continuous improvement in the field of human rights, we apply human rights due diligence as the mechanism to enable progress, stakeholder collaboration and most importantly, avoiding harm for the people that may be affected by our business.

More about our approach to human rights

Raise a concern

In Equinor we have several ways of raising a concern or grievance.

If your enquiry is urgent or related to a safety issue, please call us immediately at +47 51 99 00 00.

We also have an independently hosted helpline available for anyone involved in or affected by our activities to raise a concern. We call this the Ethics helpline, as it is related to our efforts to act in an ethical, sustainable and socially responsible manner, which includes the respect of human rights. All information provided into this helpline is confidential and anonymous and is available in six different languages.

Norwegian Transparency Act

The Transparency Act shall promote enterprises' respect for fundamental human rights and decent working conditions in connection with the production of goods and the provision of services and ensure the general public access to information regarding how enterprises address adverse impacts on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions. General information about how we work with sustainability and human rights can be found on this page and in our Annual Human Rights Statement Human Rights Statement 2023

Upon written request, any person has the right to information from an enterprise regarding how the enterprise addresses actual and potential adverse impacts for human rights and decent working conditions. More information about this right is described in the Act §§ 6 and 7, Act relating to enterprises' transparency and work on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions (Transparency Act) - Lovdata

Should you have an enquiry related to how Equinor addresses actual and potential adverse impacts on fundamental human rights and decent working conditions, please use the contact us form (click the specific ‘Human rights performance information’ category to ensure your question reaches the appropriate team).

Our performance

Equinor produces several reports which are linked to our efforts to continuously to embed human rights and implement adequate human rights due diligence processes into the way we conduct our business. The following reports support these efforts: