Case study: How DGB Financial Group promotes and protects human rights

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2018/2019 Sustainability Report DGB Financial Group identified a range of material issues, such as retaining customers through customer satisfaction services, developing eco-friendly financial products and services, expanding anti-corruption activities and measures, achieving stable business performance centred on profitability and integrity. Among these, promoting and protecting human rights stands out as a key material issue for DGB Financial Group.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups DGB Financial Group engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics DGB Financial Group carried out an online/offline survey with 752 internal and external stakeholders.

What actions were taken by DGB Financial Group to promote and protect human rights?

In its 2018/2019 Sustainability Report DGB Financial Group reports that it took the following actions for promoting and protecting human rights:

• Establishing the DGB Human Rights Centre
• DGB Financial Group deeply regrets a human rights violation that occurred in 2017 at a DGB Financial Group affiliate, DGB Daegu Bank. Wrongful practices have been abolished and to prevent a recurrence of such an incident, the DGB Human Rights Centre was established, under the direct responsibility of the bank President. The DGB Human Rights Centre is the first of its kind to be established by a general company as opposed to a national institution, and has been working in practical ways to protect the rights of the Group’s employees. The Centre’s main activities include:
  • Counselling on human rights and sexual harassment /abuse
  • Management of human rights-related tasks for the heads of every branch office
  • Appointment and management of staff for human rights counselling (female manager)
  • Human rights-related tasks (monitoring, prevention activities, reporting, counselling)
  • Human rights violation reporting, consulting, aid, etc.

• Implementing a “traveling counsellor” system
• The DGB Human Rights Centre operates a “traveling counsellor” system under which the director of the Human Rights Centre personally visits office branches around the country, to provide counselling for any employees facing difficulties. This makes the reporting of violations more accessible, and through one-on-one, face-to-face discussions, it protects the anonymity of the informants. The DGB Human Rights Centre analyses the outcomes of these consultations and incorporates them into action plans, to protect human rights.

• Strengthening the expertise of Human Rights Managers
• DGB Financial Group is working to strengthen human rights expertise within the company, in order to better systematise counselling and human rights-related tasks. The Group’s Human Rights Managers have earned teaching licenses on sexual harassment prevention, and have strengthened their capabilities through training courses with specialist organisations such as the Korea Management Association. DGB Financial Group plans to continue sending managers to specialist training courses and to expand such training to other directors and administrators, as part of its continuing efforts to strengthen human rights management within the company.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 412-2 Employee training on human rights policies or procedures

Disclosure 412-2 Employee training on human rights policies or procedures does not correspond to any SDG.

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by DGB Financial Group, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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