Case study: How FCA promotes and respects human rights

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2018 Sustainability Report FCA identified a range of material issues, such as business integrity, vehicle safety, customer satisfaction, employee health and safety, vehicle CO2 emissions, research and innovation. Among these, promoting and respecting human rights stands out as a key material issue for FCA.

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 FCA engages with: 

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics FCA carried out an online survey regarding sustainability topics among over 5,000 internal and external stakeholders, worldwide.

What actions were taken by FCA to promote and respect human rights?

In its 2018 Sustainability Report FCA reports that it took the following actions for promoting and respecting human rights:

• Implementing Human Rights Guidelines
• The FCA Human Rights Guidelines, which are publicly available, are consistent with the spirit and intent of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (Ruggie Framework), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies, the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the U.K. Modern Slavery Act 2015. FCA’s Human Rights Guidelines cover the rights FCA seeks to ensure for, and with, its major stakeholders:
  • Employees: FCA prohibits the use of child and forced labour and seeks to provide a diverse and inclusive workplace, free from discrimination and harassment. FCA recognises and respects workforce members’ freedom of association and is committed to providing employment conditions that are competitive and compliant with all applicable employment, wage and working hour laws. FCA conducts all of its worldwide operations with the highest regard for the health and safety of its workforce, in accordance with applicable laws, and is dedicated to consistently improving health and safety measures to help ensure that the potential for injury in the workplace is minimised.
  • Customers: FCA is committed to offering safe, reliable, high-quality vehicles to its customers.
  • Communities: FCA is committed to socially responsible engagement with the communities where it operates.
  • Business partners and suppliers: FCA expects its suppliers, contractors and other business partners with whom it does business to adhere to its human rights standards. They are also required to comply with all occupational health and safety related rules and regulations, and to adopt measures and standards that contribute to an overall improvement in occupational health and safety performance throughout the value chain.

• Carrying out a human rights survey and self-assessment
• As part of its effort to internally identify and mitigate any human rights risks, the following tools have been developed by FCA:
  • An annual survey aimed at detecting any case of child and forced labour at worldwide FCA companies, including those located in countries that have not ratified ILO Conventions on these issues. In 2018, no incidents of child labour or forced and compulsory labour were reported in any of the companies mapped.
  • A Human Rights self-assessment performed by the Internal Audit department as part of the standard internal audit process, in order to cover due diligence requirements of the UN Ruggie Framework Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Checks are also performed in countries with a high risk based on the yearly Audit Plan.
• Areas covered by the self-assessment include child labour and young workers, forced labour, freedom from discrimination, conditions of employment, security, and supply chain management. In 2018, the human rights self-assessment compliance checklist was performed by individual legal entities and reviewed by Internal Audit and Compliance, with a coverage of 74% of the FCA workforce worldwide, involving the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, India, Mexico and the U.S. Alleged human rights violations are reported through the same channels as other types of potential violations, including the FCA Ethics Helpline and the telephone contact list available on FCA’s corporate website.

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

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 408-1 Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of child labor

2) Disclosure 409-1 Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of forced or compulsory labor

3) Disclosure 412-1 Operations that have been subject to human rights reviews or impact assessments

Disclosure 408-1 Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of child labor corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Business theme: Abolition of child labor
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Business theme: Abolition of child labor

Disclosure 409-1 Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of forced or compulsory labor corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Business theme: Elimination of forced or compulsory labor

Disclosure 412-1 Operations that have been subject to human rights reviews or impact assessments 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 FCA, 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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