Respecting Human Rights is a fundamental part of OCEANSAPARTs responsibility. OCEANSAPART’s Human Rights Due Diligence policy is embedded in OCEANSAPART’s broader risk management approach. The HRDD policy is OCEANSAPART’s commitment and guiding principle through the entire organisation and value chain. It underscores our unwavering dedication to upholding internationally recognized human rights and ensuring the implementation of human rights due diligence in all activities undertaken by OCEANSAPART.
Our commitment
We commit to holistically integrating the due diligence process into our daily operations, ensuring that human rights are cross-cutting and woven into every function and aspect of our business activities:
– Production (tier-1 and beyond)
– Logistics (Inbound, warehousing, outbound)
– Marketing (Influencers, campaign production, content)
– Own operations (Own staff, HQ procurement).
– Our customers
Scope
The Human Rights Due Diligence Statement applies to our employees globally, calling on them to act in a reasonable and lawful manner towards all individuals throughout our value chain. We also expect our suppliers, intermediaries and other business partners to encourage and promote the principles of this policy throughout their networks and uphold these values within their business policies and standard operating procedures. Our OA Supplier Code of Conduct compliments the HRDD statement and is the basis for all of our operations and business relationships.
Priorities
Addressing human rights Impact
In order to integrate human rights due diligence considerations, we have included a risk assessment for our sourcing countries in our management processes. We commit to the continuous evaluation of human rights-related risks to define actual and potential human rights impacts that stem from our business activities. We commit to regularly integrating these findings into our internal policies, acting on the findings, monitoring our progress towards improvement and collaboratively addressing the impact alongside our stakeholders.
We understand that human rights due diligence is an ongoing process that requires particular attention at certain stages during our business activities. This is particularly important when forming new partnerships or when our operating conditions change, as these developments may create new potential or actual impacts on human rights.
Responsible purchasing practices along the supply chain
As OCEANSAPART, we acknowledge the potential positive and negative implications of our actions on our employees, suppliers, communities, contractors and even the wider society. To prevent and mitigate negative impacts, we pledge to uphold responsible purchasing practices. In line with this commitment, we are working towards equal partnership models with our business partners. This involves collaborative planning, fair payment terms and sustainable costing. Additionally, OCEANSAPART is working in partnership with suppliers and engaging in industry conversations on traceability and verification tools, and approaches to ensure the responsible sourcing of our raw materials.
Remediation
We recognise the importance of improving access to remedy in global supply chains. Our commitment involves building awareness and knowledge about human rights, including labour rights, among our employees and workers throughout the supply chain. We actively encourage them to voice their concerns, without fear of retribution, including through our grievance communication channels. We are committed to expanding the availability of grievance procedures for workers in our supply chain through our partner the Fair Wear Foundation. Moreover, we actively encourage and support our suppliers in establishing effective grievance mechanisms.
Fundamental and primary human rights
We focus on the human rights issues that are most salient to our business:
– General violations for which we take a zero-tolerance approach: forced labour, child labour, any evidence of physical, sexual, verbal or mental abuse, failure to pay minimum wages, foreign or migrant workers without legal work permits, unauthorised homeworkers, bribery and corruption.
– Women’s rights and empowerment
– Living wage and income
– Safety and health working environment
– Climate change and environment
– Data privacy
We recognise that other issues may grow in importance over time. We commit to identifying those potential human rights risks and taking appropriate action where necessary. We leverage our relationships and maintain ongoing dialogues with external stakeholders to stay abreast of changes. Our sustainability team conducts annual reviews of our focus areas, ensuring a proactive response to evolving human rights challenges.
Implementation and collaboration
We commit to assessing and managing human rights impacts within our operational context, considering both our leverage and business relationships. We commit to using our leverage to work either in one-to-one relationships or build broad-based partnerships.
We recognise the importance of dialogue with our employees, workers across the value chain and external stakeholders.
We commit to collaborating with relevant stakeholders across the industry, including industry initiatives and multi-stakeholder platforms, coalitions, NGOs and other brands to jointly identify, mitigate, remediate and prevent potential human rights risks.
We strive to organise social dialogue at our production sites so as to ensure that we involve collective worker voices in both the prevention of risks and remediation of adverse impacts.
We commit to broadly promoting human rights due diligence through PR, advocacy campaigns, multi-stakeholder initiatives and stakeholder dialogues.
Governance and accountability
Respect for Human Rights is an integral part of our overall responsible business strategy. We report on our progress against our efforts in the annual Social Report submitted to the Fair Wear Foundation and commit to communicating this externally. OCEANSAPART’s Chief Executive Officer oversees the accountability for implementation. This ensures that every part of our business is clear about the responsibility to respect human rights and its day-to-day implementation.
Final provision
OA’s Human Rights Policy statement is adopted by the CEO and the Board of management on 12.07.2023
Silvana Bonello
CEO OCEANSAPART
Michael Bornhäuser
Chairman of the Board