Managing our business in a responsible way is key to our vision of becoming Australia and New Zealand’s most respected bank.
Shareholders
Human rights approach
We promote a culture of respect for human rights in our workforce and in our business relationships.
Why is this important?
Consistent with our Values, respecting human rights is a fundamental part of the way we do business – shaping the way we embrace, support and treat our people, customers and communities.
What do we do?
As well as being a signatory to the UN Global Compact, we’ve committed to uphold a number of international commitments which incorporate human rights requirements. These include:
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
- UN Environment Program - Finance Initative (UNEP FI)
- Equator Principles, and
- OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.
The subsidiaries named below have also committed to the following:
- Women’s Empowerment Principles (Bank of New Zealand), and
- Principles for Responsible Investment (Jana).
Our policies, practices and due diligence processes emphasise the requirement for all employees to respect human rights, and to take care to avoid being complicit in human rights abuses.
Our Policy
Our Human Rights Policy was approved in 2016 by our Board.
- Download the Human Rights Policy (pdf)
- Download the Human Rights Policy (word format)
How do we do it?
- We have developed a Human Rights Policy that applies across our business – mapping how we address human rights in our policies, practices and business operations.
- We have issued our 2016 Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement outlining how we address this risk within our business operations and relationships.
- We have implemented risk management processes to identify, assess, mitigate and monitor potential risk areas where we could be exposed to human rights concerns.
- Targets are in place covering gender equality and supplier sustainability.
- We have grievance mechanisms to allow employees, customers and other external affected parties to raise concerns (including human rights related concerns) and have them investigated and addressed. You can contact our NAB Resolve team to provide feedback or raise a concern.
These activities help us to do business in a way that respects the rights and dignity of people, and avoids complicity in human rights abuse.
Reporting on our performance
Below are additional resources and reports where you can learn more about the actions we have taken during the year and progress against our targets:
- Dig Deeper Report
- UN Global Compact Communication on Progress
- 2016 Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
- Improper Land Acquisition policy statement progress report
Related policies, frameworks and action plans
We consider human rights as part of our people management and the way we interact with, and support our customers, community and business operations. Below are a number of related policies, frameworks and action plans:
A few pages
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Corporate responsibility governance
Our Advisory Council comprises a range of experienced internal and external advisors.
Performance and reporting
Our Annual Reporting suite provides an overview of our corporate responsibility strategy and performance.
Stakeholder engagement
We engage with our stakeholders to understand expectations, identify problems and discover opportunities.