Purpose (continued) 52 Vodafone Group Plc Annual Report 2024
Strategic report
Governance
Financials
Other information
strong support for a culture of respect for human rights while identifying actionable improvements, such as consolidating and simplifying our policy architecture and accountability structure and building and empowering our Human Rights Champions network. In FY24, we have updated our Human Rights policy and relaunched our Human Rights Champions network. In FY25, we will conduct a review of our Human Rights Advisory Group’s terms of reference and membership structure with the aim to report on our progress. Collaboration We play our part in developing the global understanding of what businesses should do to respect human rights. We were placed second in the Ranking Digital Rights 2022 Telco Giants Scorecard, maintaining our position from the 2020 Index. We are a member of initiatives such as the GSMA Mobile Alliance to combat Digital Child Sexual Exploitation and the United Nations B-Tech Project, which convenes business, civil society and government to advance implementation of the UN Guiding Principles in the tech sector. This year, as part of the Human Rights 75 Initiative, we joined with other B-Tech Community of Practice members to make a public pledge to continue engaging with other companies to share experiences of implementing our respect for human rights commitments. Responsible supply chain We spend approximately €19 billion a year with 8,000 direct suppliers around the world 1 to meet our businesses’ and customers’ needs across network infrastructure, IT and services related to fixed lines, mobile masts and data centres that run our networks. The majority of our external spend is managed by our Vodafone Procurement Company (‘VPC’) based in Luxembourg, and our shared services organisation (‘_VOIS’) based in Ahmedabad, India. A large area of spend is on the products we sell to our customers, including mobile phones, smartwatches, tablets, SIM cards, broadband routers, TV set-top boxes and Internet of Things devices. This centralised approach helps to ensure that we maintain a consistent approach to supplier management across Vodafone, from onboarding and vetting a supplier to raising orders and paying for delivered goods and services. Supply chain risks We work with other operators collaboratively on supply chain risks within the Joint Alliance for CSR (‘JAC’). We currently chair the association of telecommunications operators established to improve ethical, labour and environmental standards in the technology supply chain. We are engaged in workstreams to make progress towards reducing Scope 3 GHG emissions. JAC reports on progress with respect to third-party factory audits of common suppliers carried out on behalf of all its members in its own reporting. Please refer to their website for details. Click to read more about the Joint Alliance for CSR: jac-initiative.com Policy This year we updated our Code of Ethical Purchasing which every supplier that works for Vodafone is required to comply with. These commitments extend down through the supply chain so that a supplier with which we have a direct contractual relationship (Tier 1 supplier) in turn is required to ensure compliance across its own direct supply chain (Tier 2 supplier from Vodafone’s perspective) and beyond. The Code of Ethical Purchasing is based on international standards, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization’s Fundamental Conventions on Labour Standards. It stipulates the social, ethical and environmental standards that we expect, including in areas such as child and forced labour, health and safety, working hours, discrimination and disciplinary processes.
Human rights risks As a global telecommunications operator, we connect people. This means that globally our most significant human rights risks relate to our customers’ rights to privacy, concerning their data that we safeguard, and freedom of expression, in terms of their ability to receive, seek and share information, through the connections we provide. Local laws and regulations can mandate that telecommunications operators must assist governments, and we must comply with lawful government requests as part of our operating licences. This might include the disclosure of customer information or limiting access to digital networks and services. However, our internal law enforcement assistance policy guides us on how to do this in a rights-respecting way, and our transparency reporting provides data on certain requests we receive. Click to read more about how we handle law enforcement demands: vodafone.com/handling-law-enforcement-demands The risks to people working throughout our supply chain are another area of focus for us. We manage these risks through our responsible supply chain programme, which assesses our suppliers for indicators such as forced labour and other risks to human rights, such as health and safety. As members of the Joint Alliance for CSR (‘JAC’), we benefit from JAC-led on-site supplier audits and sharing of best practices with other telecommunications operators to enhance our supply chain management. We believe in supporting the responsible sourcing of minerals globally. Although we do not source minerals ourselves, we follow the best practice of the OECD Due Diligence Guidance to understand whether our manufactured products include minerals that have been sourced from smelters taking a responsible approach to sourcing. Our human rights programme also addresses a broader range of human rights risks, such as those relating to the design and deployment of artificial intelligence, children’s rights, data ethics and risks we may become connected with through our broader value chain, such as enterprise customers or partner markets. Our approach We conduct due diligence in line with our internal policies to proactively identify and address potential negative human rights impacts. Due diligence comes in various forms and at different moments in our operations: it may be an independent human rights risk assessment for a new market entry, the ongoing assessments we do when considering new partner markets, roaming partnerships, the deployment of artificial intelligence or the development of new products and services. We follow up assessments of actual or potential material negative human rights impacts with what we consider to be appropriate mitigating actions, such as contractual commitments to respect human rights in our partner market agreements and in our enterprise customer contracts. We maintain a grievance mechanism ‘Speak Up’ accessible to all individuals in our workforce or supply chain, providing a platform to raise concerns about human rights issues.
Click to read more about our Conflict Minerals Reports and Statement: vodafone.com/ responsibleminerals
Click or scan to watch a video summarising our human rights approach: investors.vodafone.com/videos
Governance The Chief External and Corporate Affairs Officer oversees our human rights programme and is a member of the Executive Committee. The Human Rights Manager, working closely with the Vodacom Group Human Rights Principal Specialist, manages our programme, and is supported by a cross-functional internal Human Rights Advisory Group, comprising senior managers responsible for privacy, security, responsible sourcing and diversity and inclusion, amongst others. We report regularly on our progress to the Purpose and Reputation Steering Committee, which assists the Executive Committee in fulfilling duties with regard to our purpose, reputation management and policy. This year, we concluded a review of our human rights impacts, governance and controls, which recognised Vodafone’s
Click to read our Code of Ethical Purchasing: vodafone.com/code-of-ethical-purchasing
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