Human Rights Due Diligence

Datwyler is committed to high standards of business ethics and integrity, including the support and respect for human rights and labor standards. This commitment is reflected in our official company values and in our Code of Conduct, our overarching compliance document.

Datwyler company values are key to our success and act as strong roots in our growth strategy. Along with the Code of Conduct, these values shape the culture and leadership at each of the Datwyler locations around the world. ln particular, our value "We have respect for others" contains an uncompromising commitment that all our employees, regardless of position, function, or location, act with high integrity and embrace the Datwyler Code of Conduct.

Additionally, by joining the UN Global Compact in 2009, Datwyler has committed itself to the ten principles relating to human rights, labor standards, environmental protection, and anti-corruption initiatives, having communicated on its progress ever since.

We recognize that business, wherever it operates, may potentially have an impact on human rights either through its own operations or via business relationships along the value chain. As such, we treat the respect for human rights as a priority and require our business partners to do the same.

Datwyler's respect for human rights extends to all individuals along the value chain, including material customers, suppliers, business partners, and other parties directly linked to its operations, products, and services.

During 2023, to further formalize and specify our commitment to support and respect human rights by adopting responsible business practices aligned with internationally recognized human rights standards, we have developed and approved, by both our Board and Executive Management, a dedicated Human Rights Policy.

This Human Rights Policy provides a common framework and further detail for Datwyler's responsibility to respect human rights that is globally valid and underlies all business activities and relationships. As part of Datwyler's risk management processes, this policy sets out an effective and proactive framework for our risk management of human rights issues through a human rights due diligence ("HRDD") process.

The development of this policy was also supported by a risk and impact assessment, stakeholder consultations, and identification of salient human rights issues (detailed in the next section). We acknowledge that the evaluation of the severity of potential impacts may change and that other issues may grow in importance over time. We will therefore periodically re-assess these salient issues.

We are guided by international human rights frameworks, which include but are not limited to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the International Labour Organization (ILO) Core Labor Conventions, the UNICEF Children's Rights and Business Principles (CRBP), and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

Datwyler’s goal is to conduct a human rights due diligence process throughout the business to proactively identify, assess, cease, prevent, or mitigate actual or potential human rights risks and impacts along the value chain. To this end, we are committed to align our HRDD framework with internationally recognized standards such as the UNGPs and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

This HRDD framework encompasses the following six steps, as also covered by our Human Rights Policy:

1. Policy commitment

2. Identify, assess, and prioritize actual and potential human rights impacts

3. Cease, prevent, or mitigate adverse human rights impacts

4. Embed and integrate respect for human rights

5. Track and communicate performance

6. Access to grievance and remedy

Each of these interconnected steps is further detailed below.

The dedicated Human Rights Policy further reinforces, in addition to all the other group-wide documents where human rights were already mentioned as one of the group’s key responsibilities, Datwyler's commitment to support and respect human rights and guides the implementation of the HRDD framework for the company.

Approved and signed by our Chairman and CEO, this policy is globally valid and underlies all business activities and relationships. 

The Human Rights Policy has been developed by consulting different stakeholders, both internal and external, such as those participating in the different workshops that led to the identification and approval of the salient human rights issues in our value chain.

Datwyler does not attribute more importance to one human right over another. Nevertheless, for the practical implementation of its human rights commitment, Datwyler focuses on the following topics (in alphabetical order), to the extent they may have adverse human rights impacts, that are the most salient to our business according to their scale, scope, and remediability:

• Child labor

• Consumer and product safety

• Corruption

• Environmental issues impacting human rights

• Forced labor

• Labor conditions

• Occupational health and safety

The whole process of identifying, assessing, and prioritizing potential human rights issues involved the consultation of over thirty internal and external stakeholders from different sectors, functions, and geographies. Based on this process, eleven human rights issues were identified as the most relevant which, after further analysis, based on the potential severity of each issue’s impact and the company’s leverage, resulted in the abovementioned salient human rights issues.

These salient human rights issues will be periodically re-assessed via systematic human rights risk and impact assessments conducted in accordance with the UNGPs.

Also, and despite the non-attribution of more importance to one human right over another, when it comes to children rights we commit to: (i) respect children’s right to be free from child labor, (ii) permit safe work for children above the applicable minimum age, if such work exists, and (iii) seek to follow the higher standards, where and when feasible, whenever local laws are less stringent than Datwyler’s policies and internationally recognized human rights and labor standards.

Based on the human rights risks and impacts identified and in a continued dialog with internal and external stakeholders, Datwyler defines and implements appropriate measures to cease, prevent, or mitigate adverse human rights impacts across the value chain. An important step in this process is the adequate implementation of human rights standards across the company and the progressive embedding of these standards in different business processes.

In the next financial year we will focus on the following:

• Continue progressively embedding human rights topics into our internal processes

• Provide training to the organization to continue building awareness on human rights

• Perform supplier risk assessment to identify those with heightened human rights risk

• Perform own operations risk assessment to identify those with heightened human rights risk

• Continue refining our grievance and whistleblowing channels

In order to further disseminate human rights-related prevention and mitigation measures, these will be, to the extent possible, progressively integrated into the company processes, training, and documents.

As initial priorities, we have focused and delivered on the following: publication of our Human Rights Policy on the company’s website, dissemination of the Human Rights Policy across all our global entities, initial training and communication, update of our Code of Conduct and Supplier Code of Conduct.

Datwyler commits to report, in its annual sustainability report, on the progress of its efforts to address the identified and prioritized human rights issues and mitigation measures.

To monitor and track the effectiveness of our defined mitigation measures we use a management system with specific key performance indicators that allows us to have a clear view of the progress being made.

Key performance indicators include the number of processes and documents in which human rights issues are included, the numbers of suppliers that are assessed for human rights risks, the number of sites that are assessed for human rights risks and the number of human rights due diligence training sessions.

Datwyler attaches great importance to living a culture of integrity and shared responsibilities. Anyone who has a legitimate concern can freely speak up, without fear of retaliation, verbally or in writing, either with the appropriate manager or via our Compliance and Whistleblowing Hotline. This whistleblowing system ensures anonymity and data protection and is available in 10 languages.

Our Code of Conduct, Human Rights Policy, and other internal documentation and training also include detailed descriptions of our reporting channels.

When adverse human rights impacts are uncovered due to Datwyler business activities or from links to its operations, the company is committed to taking timely and transparent action to remediate in a fair and equitable manner in line with the UNGPs. Where Datwyler finds impacts directly linked to its business relationships, to the extent possible, it will use its influence to encourage suppliers and business partners to respect human rights.