Human & Workplace Rights

The true measure of a well-managed business is not just whether it is financially successful, but how it achieves that success.

In recent years, we have more clearly defined what we stand for with respect to human and workplace rights. We have also begun the complex work of ensuring that our entire business system and supply chain align with our policies. We expect our Company, our bottling partners and our suppliers to avoid causing, or contributing to, adverse human rights impacts as a result of business actions and to address such impacts when they occur. Furthermore, our Company, bottling partners and suppliers are also responsible for preventing or mitigating adverse human rights impacts directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships.

Since 2005, we have worked to support the mandate of Professor John Ruggie, the former UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, in developing guiding principles for implementing his “Protect, Respect and Remedy” framework for respecting human rights in a business context. In May 2011, we formally endorsed the draft Guiding Principles, which the UN Human Rights Council adopted in June -- providing for the first time a global standard for addressing the risk of adverse impacts on human rights linked to business activity. These Guiding Principles are now a key touchstone for our policies and programs related to workplace and human rights.

According to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, implementing respect for human rights in a corporate context has three primary components:

1. A policy commitment to meet the responsibility to respect human rights;
2. A due diligence process to identify, prevent, mitigate and be accountable for human rights abuses; and
3. Processes to enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts the company causes or to which it contributes.

Among the many steps we have taken to implement the UN's Guiding Principles is an analysis of potential and actual human rights impacts across our entire value chain, from raw materials to end use. We have identified human rights risks along with policies and actions for mitigating them. In addition, we have developed five human-rights-related due diligence checklists for managers across our Company, along with instructions for using them. The easy-to-use, two-page checklists cover such topics as migrant labor, child labor, plant siting and more. They offer clear steps our managers can take immediately to move beyond compliance with our policies to an ongoing respect for human and workplace rights that is inseparable from our daily operations.

Related Links:
Human Rights Statement
Workplace Rights Policy
Global Mutual Respect Policy
Supplier Guiding Principles
Human Rights Screensaver

The Coca-Cola Company is included in the Calvert Social Index, a broad-based performance benchmark for U.S.-based sustainable and responsible companies. The investment management firm conducts a sustainability audit in the areas of governance and ethics; environment; workplace; product safety and impact; community relations; international operations and human rights; and indigenous peoples' rights. Calvert cited our Company's progress and emerging leadership in labor/human rights and water stewardship as primary reasons for the inclusion. Learn more about the Calvert Social Index.