Minimum safeguards

The minimum safeguards consist of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Fundamental Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Bill of Human Rights.

The Volkswagen Group accepts its corporate responsibility for human rights, fully recognizes these conventions and declarations and reaffirms its agreement with the contents and principles stated therein.

Below, we describe the main analyses we used to examine whether the minimum safeguards are adhered to.

The Volkswagen Group has conducted and completed human rights risk assessments for 802 controlled Group companies worldwide; this includes all sites that were also examined under the DNSH criteria. This risk analysis takes into account the prior-year results and risk assessments. The companies were given risk-specific measures to counteract the risks identified in the analysis, and were required to implement these. The status of implementation of the respective measures is continuously monitored by the Group.

Relationships with our business partners are based on the Code of Conduct for Business Partners. We review compliance with the binding requirements defined in the Code, using sustainability ratings for relevant suppliers. We address existing sustainability risks and violations of sustainability principles by systematically defining and implementing measures to correct the violations; this also includes the upstream supply chain. We implemented a Human-Rights-Focus-System in 2022 to comply with international frameworks and requirements and specifically the Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz (LkSG – German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act). The system aims to identify particularly high risks in our supply chain in connection with human rights violations and the environment and to manage these appropriately.

The assessments confirm that we meet the requirements of the minimum safeguards in the reporting year.