Human Rights

Emedco commitment to human rights

As an international contractor, operating under high social, environmental and ethical principles, EMEDCO is aware of its due diligence obligations and is committed to respecting and upholding all internationally recognized freedoms and human rights. The basis for this are:

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948)
  • The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN, 1966)
  • The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN, 1966)
  • The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its follow-up Declaration (ILO Core Labor Standards, 1998)
  • The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, 1998)
  • The UN Global Compact (UN, 1999)
  • The UK Modern Slavery Act (2015)

We have expressed this clearly and bindingly in our internal principles. For example, the EMEDCO Code of Conduct, applicable to all our employees, and the EMEDCO Code of Conduct for Business Partners obliges them to comply with human rights. We have also reiterated our commitment to respecting human rights in our revised Position Paper. This is also reflected in our new guideline for business partners, "Human Rights - Our Requirements of You", which is also part of the supplier selection process in Europe.

Commitment

Many people are in a direct or indirect way part of our projects. EMEDCO bears responsibility for all of them. We avoid any situation that could have a negative impact on their  wellbeing. This applies in particular to respect human rights  along our entire value chain, as well as their health and safety. This applies not only to our own employees, suppliers, subcontractors and their subcontractors, but also for example to those affected only indirectly by our projects, such as residents of nearby construction projects.

We have screened our potential subcontractors and suppliers with particular focus on those operating in countries with an increased risk of human rights violations. Through our EMEDCO Code of Conduct for Business Partners and the associated measures, we oblige our partners to enforce the same standards with regard to human rights, labour, social and environmental standards among their partners.

In addition, EMEDCO has expanded its supplier self-disclosure to include the topic of human rights which we evaluate in a targeted manner we aim to ensure that potential contractual partners meet our human rights compliance requirements in all of their actions.

EMEDCO continued to purchase materials and services for the most part in 2021 from subcontractors and suppliers with high human rights standards in accordance with the UN conventions. In the very few procurement countries where these conventions are not taken into account, we set our own requirements with our own standards.