Human rights

We are committed to respecting fundamental human rights in our operations, our value chain, and in the communities where we operate. We recognize our responsibility to prevent, mitigate, and address adverse human rights impacts connected to our business activities. We base our commitment on international human rights and labour standards, with particular emphasis on:

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• The ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
• The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
• The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
• The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

We are committed to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP).

Protecting human rights in our own company

• Grieg Seafood welcomes and promotes unionization, collective bargaining, and other formal employee representation arenas according to the business culture of each of our operating countries. All our employees have the right to join or not join a labor union. All employees have access to third-party representation regardless of whether they are a union member or not.
• We conduct our activities without discrimination, we treat our employees fairly and compensate fairly by offering competitive salary and benefit packages. We use the Kornferry methodology to benchmark our salaries yearly and ensure that we are paying market rates as a minimum. We pay the same rates for same type of work regardless of gender, culture or other origin.
• We offer sick-pay to all our employees based on the national laws of the countries we operate in regardless of if they are permanent or temporary staff. We demand that our external hired staff and contractors have sick pay included in their contracts.
• All our employees are offered good and reasonable working hours, in accordance with union agreements to maintain a good worklife balance.
• Everyone who is employed by us works here of their own free will in alignment with the ILO Declaration.
• We have zero tolerance for bullying, unwanted sexual attention, or harassment.
• We promote diversity with respect to employee gender, age, ethnicity, physical abilities, personality, skills, experiences, and backgrounds.
• Effective health and safety management is of fundamental importance in the conduct of our operations. We promote a strong safety culture and comply with high standards of health and safety practices. We have a zero-vision for, and aim to prevent, work-related injuries, illnesses, and accidents.
• We respect employees’ rights to privacy
• We contribute to economic, social, and cultural development in the rural communities where we operate. Recognizing that our operations are based on natural capital, belonging to local communities as a whole, we strive to minimize our impact and create shared opportunities.
• We recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples in our relevant production regions, as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and we take particular care to avoid infringing on such rights.

Our third-party certifications include independent audits of human rights practices:

• ASC has requirements related to ILO rights, prohibits the use of child or forced labor, and has HSE requirements.
• GlobalG.A.P has requirements related to the work environment such as workers’ health, safety and welfare. We provide ongoing training to update our employees on the requirements in aquaculture, safe chemical handling, and awareness about food safety.
• BAP has requirements towards unsafe working conditions, eliminating of forced child labor, fair wages and appropriate terms of employment.
  

Whitsleblower Channel

We have a whistleblower channel operated via an external service provider, EY. Our whistleblower channel is available to all employees at Workplace and through our intranet. Read our Whistleblowing procedure here.

Protecting human rights in our value chain

Our suppliers are required to follow our Supplier Code of Conduct, which covers human rights. They are expected to adhere to global standards for good corporate practice, including the United Nations Global Compact, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the Norwegian Code of Practice for Corporate Governance and International Labour Standards on Forced and Child Labour.

We are currently conducting a thorough human rights due diligence, with the aim of identifying, preventing, mitigating and account for human rights impacts in our supply chain. The assessment has so far indicated the following areas for prioritization (based on high risk industries, high risk geographies, known controversies, placement in our supply chain and mitigating measures taken):

• Risk of human rights breaches in our feed supply chains, related to both marine and plant-based ingredients. These supply chains may be global, long, complex and opaque, do in some instances originate in high-risk geographies or high-risk industries, and are in some cases tied to controversies.
• Risk of human rights breaches when transporting the fish to our customers. Several controversies have been related to the question of adequate working conditions for truck drivers (so-called “social dumping”), and the transportation industry is regarded as high-risk.

While the in-depth assessment is not yet completed, we have started the work of addressing these risks in engagements with relevant suppliers or by implementing mitigating measures:

• We are together with WWF and the Global Salmon Initiative developing an extensive environmental, social and governance assessment of feed ingredients which also covers human rights. It includes the areas of labor rights, child labor, forced labor and discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining, gender and minority rights, migrant workers and harm to indigenous and local communities. The assessment evaluates the presence of governance frameworks like policies, grievance mechanisms, remediation and incidents. A main challenge is lack of transparency in the feed ingredient supply chains and Grieg Seafood is pushing for improvements in this area.
• Starting with our Norwegian operations, we have specifically required adherence to labor rights areas at risk in RFQs and contracts with transportation suppliers (including fair wages, the right to organize and collective bargaining, health and safety, working hours, rest, housing standards and other working conditions). In 2022, we started an audit program of our transportation suppliers in this area, using a third-party auditor.

Our full human rights due diligence will be made public in 2023. Measures to tackle risk will be adjusted to the outcome of the due diligence, and will be communicated externally.

Governance

Our approach to human rights is based on the following governing documents:

• Grieg Seafood’s company values
• Several Group Policies (many of these documents are available here):
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Human Rights
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Occupational Health and Safety
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Diversity
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Gender Equity
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Procurement
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Sustainable Feed
  • Grieg Seafood Policy on Anti-Money Laundering
• Grieg Seafood Employee Code of Conduct
• Grieg Seafood Supplier Code of Conduct

The Norwegian Transparency Act

The Norwegian Transparency Act promote respect for fundamental human rights and decent working conditions related to production of goods and services. It ensures that the public has access to information on how companies address adverse human rights impacts.

Grieg Seafood will publish an account of due diligence according to Section 4 in the Transparency Act. The account will comply with Section 5 of the Transparency Act.

For enquiries about our work with human rights, please contact us at info@griegseafood.com