Respect for human rights should be a part of everyone’s working day, as enshrined in our Code of Business Conduct.

At Diageo, we create an environment where people feel they are treated fairly and with respect. We are committed to acting in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and embedding respect for human rights into everyone’s working day, in every country throughout our supply chain.

We work to ensure that we do not infringe human rights ourselves, and that we are not complicit with others in any abuse of human rights.

Our approach is enshrined in our policies and guidelines and underpins our Spirit of Progress plan.

Lead responsibility for human rights sits with members of the Diageo Executive. The Diageo Executive sit on our Global Human Rights Steering Committee, shape our strategy on human rights and ensure its operational delivery across Diageo activities. Our global strategy is reviewed on a periodic basis by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors and by the Executive’s Audit and Risk Committee. Local human rights risks are managed locally at our Risk Management Committees.

We use a variety of tools to assess risk in our direct operations. This includes self-assessment questionnaires for all direct operations, third-party human rights assessments for high risk direct operations and deep dive assessments for groups that we consider more vulnerable to risk. Where assessments identify material human rights concerns or suggest our approach can be strengthened to better identify and prevent risk, we strive to put in place robust action plans to resolve matters, working with external experts when appropriate

A dedicated Responsible Sourcing team is in place to lead the management and implementation of our human rights approach beyond our own operations (find out more here).

We measure the effectiveness of our human rights governance through our internal assurance framework and global audit and risk team, third party assessments, in addition to monitoring allegation and breach trends and root causes. We continue to enhance our risk mitigation plans based on lessons learned.

We offer a global grievance and whistleblowing mechanism to our employees, business partners, and communities, a service which is available through various channels (email, telephone, web) in over 20 languages and is monitored by the global business integrity team to ensure that all allegations are handled appropriately, confidentially, and fairly. Any confirmed breaches are actioned on immediately and where appropriate, learnings are shared to prevent recurrences.

We support our employees to embed human rights in their work through an annual training plan including general awareness for all employees, as well as detailed training for functions directly related to managing human rights risks.

We recognise the importance of listening to and consulting stakeholders on issues that affect them. We do this on an ongoing basis through different mechanisms including worker interviews, reviewing grievance data and holding community dialogues. By listening to everyone who engages with Diageo, we can ensure that ours is a business that understands stakeholders' expectations and meets them.

This is how we do business the right way, from grain to glass.

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