Our approach to respecting human rights

Our commitment includes all internationally recognised human rights stated in the International Bill of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We also acknowledge children’s and women’s rights as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

Policy integration: Our commitment to operating with respect in line with international standards is reflected in our corporate-level Human Rights Policy and in operational-level policies and guidelines, which help us act with accountability and fulfill our obligations in practice.

Key operational-level policies include our Sustainability Commitment, which sets out our requirements for suppliers and business partners to respect human rights and the environment and to ensure good working conditions; our global Social Policies, which are the equivalent for our internal operations; and our Material Ethics Policy.

Guidelines that further support our teams and business partners in respecting human rights in their daily work include our Migrant Worker Guideline, which helps secure fair recruitment of migrant workers, and our Responsible AI Framework, which is applied when developing new AI applications.

Governance and culture: Responsibility for implementing our commitment to operating with respect for human rights is anchored at the highest level of our company. Our Board of Directors has adopted this Human Rights Policy on behalf of H&M Group and has delegated responsibility for its implementation to senior operational executives who report to the CEO.

The Head of Sustainability and the Head of Corporate Governance oversee overall implementation and report regularly on progress and impact to the Board of Directors and the leadership team. Work to further develop reporting and governance, and to integrate human rights management in an effective and meaningful way, is ongoing.

A strong culture is an essential part of our approach. One of H&M Group’s core values is “believe in people”, and a key aspect of our corporate governance has always been trusting our colleagues to make the right decisions. Raising awareness and embedding respect for human rights in our culture and values requires providing colleagues with appropriate training and the right tools.

Training and awareness-raising: Raising awareness and building understanding of what it means to operate with respect for human rights is key to effective integration. We provide basic human rights training across our business, tailoring content for different functions and roles. The training includes a basic introduction to human rights, an outline of our responsibilities in line with the UNGPs, and key aspects of effective implementation. In-depth training and workshops are targeted at key staff and cover specific topics such as forced labour and the application of remedy logic. A similar approach is applied to suppliers and business partners.

We conduct human-rights due diligence across our value chain, adjusted to operational context and risk, business relationships, and the nature of our involvement with an impact. Our process is continuous and develops as we incorporate learnings and input from stakeholders and experts.

Salient human rights impacts: Our efforts are focused on our salient human rights issues. These are the issues that have the most severe negative impact on people across our value chain. They include wages, child labor, forced labor, modern slavery, and rights to water. We regularly review our salient human rights issues together with internal and external stakeholders to ensure their relevance and to define prioritised efforts and engagement.

Special attention is given to vulnerable groups who are more exposed to violations, including women, children and migrant workers.

Risk and impact assessment: We conduct human rights impact assessments across our value chain to identify risks to people, including, but not limited to, risks related to new markets, suppliers and materials. As a global business, with a retail and production presence in over 80 markets, it is neither effective nor impactful to apply the same approach everywhere. That is why we apply a risk-based approach to our due diligence process.

We target high-risk regions, functions and processes that require the closest attention. We also seek to extend our reach by focusing on supplier ownership and partnership. This means cascading responsibilities and building leverage through our business partners to identify and address potential and actual human rights issues throughout our supply chain.

Acting on identified risks: Our approach to preventing and mitigating issues is adjusted to operational context and risk, business relationships, and the nature of our involvement in an impact. Strategies include labour monitoring programmes across our manufacturing supply chain, training and outreach programmes, communication of policies, the establishment of grievance channels, capacity-building programmes, partnerships and multi-stakeholder initiatives. We strive to continuously incorporate learnings and invite stakeholders to provide feedback on our efforts.

In many markets where we operate, certain human rights issues are systemic. Tackling these requires collaboration with other actors, and we encourage collective efforts with peers, business partners, governments and non-governmental organisations. Our work on wages is an example of an issue that is systemic and requires action from different actors.

We also engage in public affairs with the aim of strengthening regulatory effectiveness and the role of governments in protecting human rights in the countries where we operate.

Stakeholder engagement: Throughout the process, we strive to engage with rights holders, including colleagues, workers in our supply chain, customers and communities, or with their relevant representatives such as unions or NGOs, to receive valuable input. We continuously invite stakeholders to provide feedback on our efforts so that we can further improve our strategies and programmes.

For systemic issues, or issues further upstream in our supply chain where our influence is limited, we join forces with a broader range of stakeholders, including peers, suppliers and business partners, NGOs and expert organisations, to collaboratively address and improve the sustainability of our industry.

Reporting and communication: Reporting on risks and outcomes is carried out both to inform decision-making and to evaluate and adjust our approach for effectiveness. Human rights reporting is one aspect of our corporate governance, and we work to establish meaningful reporting that drives positive outcomes for people and connects with business value.

We communicate and report on progress and challenges through various channels, including our Annual and sustainability report. Over the years, we have built strong business relationships with our manufacturing suppliers and were one of the first brands to make our supplier list public in 2013.

We strongly believe that transparency and partnership increase accountability and drive progress. Over the years, our efforts to integrate human rights management and eradicate modern slavery from our supply chains have been recognised by the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark and the KnowTheChain benchmark.

Despite the best intentions and efforts, incidents and grievances will occur across our value chain. We are committed to building a culture of trust and openness, and to ensuring effective grievance mechanisms are in place so that people can raise issues and access remedy.

These mechanisms are an important aspect of our ongoing human rights due diligence and our strategic focus on promoting workers’ voices and well-functioning industrial relations in our markets. We believe the most effective way to ensure respect for human rights and good working conditions is to enable and empower individuals to speak up.

Grievance mechanisms. Our ambition is for grievances to be managed as close to the issue as possible. We do not tolerate retaliation against anyone who, in good faith, reports a grievance or participates in the investigation of a grievance in our own operations or across our supply chain.

Our internal Grievance Policy aims to ensure that all employees within H&M Group have a channel for raising grievances, as well as access to an efficient procedure for handling violations of, or grievances related to, our social policies. This includes providing a supportive and open atmosphere where employees feel comfortable raising issues directly with their managers or peers, as well as providing a company-level channel through which colleagues can escalate issues. Similarly, our corporate Speak-up! channel allows eligible stakeholders to raise grievances or concerns related to human rights impacts connected to activities across our full value chain. 

Our requirements for suppliers and business partners include the establishment of operational-level grievance mechanisms. We also recognise the importance of human rights defenders, including union representatives, in bringing attention to issues. We expect our suppliers and business partners not to hinder the work of human rights defenders or retaliate against anyone who raises an issue.

For our manufacturing supply chain, we follow up on the presence of effective operational-level grievance channels through our monitoring programmes. One of the strategic focus areas within our social sustainability work is to strengthen workers’ voices. We encourage and support the establishment of democratically elected worker representatives, and we work with our suppliers and unions to support good industrial relations.

In key production markets, and as part of our framework agreement with the global union federation IndustriALL and IF Metall, we have established National Monitoring Committees (NMCs) in collaboration with local union representatives to, among other things, receive grievances and support the resolution of escalated issues.

Incident management: In situations that impact human rights, we apply a systematic approach to analysing each case and supporting its resolution, as well as informing our involvement in providing remedy using the UNGPs’ enabling remedy framework. We recognise our responsibility to provide remedy when impacts are connected to our activities, as well as our role in exercising influence through our business relationships and building leverage with others in relation to issues further up our supply chains where we do not have direct business relationships. This specific analysis of human rights impacts is integrated into our existing routine for handling cases and incidents, and we work to raise awareness among colleagues involved in grievance and incident management.

Identified human rights incidents at supplier factories are handled in line with our incident management processes, including issuing Letters of Concern in response to severe non-compliances with our Sustainability Commitment. To prevent recurrence, we have ongoing monitoring programmes in place to assess progress, incentivise suppliers that share our business practices through increased business, and encourage engagement in various programmes at local and global levels.

Human Rights Policy

 Salient human rights 2024