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.

  • We do not tolerate discrimination, harassment, bullying or abuse.
  • We comply with wage and hour laws.
  • We respect our employees' decisions to join or not join a trade union.
  • We do not use forced or compulsory labour.

We will not work with anyone who does not adopt these same principles.

Our approach is enshrined in our policies and guidelines and underpins our 'Society 2030: Spirit of Progress' plan. It is delivered through our Enterprise Risk Management process.

Lead responsibility for human rights sits with members of the Diageo Executive and delivery is built into their Long-Term Incentive Plan. 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.

We have completed a comprehensive Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) in each of our markets to identify the most salient human rights risks for our business and supply chain. As a result of our findings, each market has a detailed action plan and we have developed a child protection programme for our work with smallholder farmers, as well as introducing our Global Brand Promoter Standard to protect brand promotion teams from harassment.

Building on this, human rights risks are managed locally at our market Risk Management Committees, which feed into regular reviews by the Executive committee at our global Audit and Risk Committee.

We measure the effectiveness of our human rights governance through our internal assurance framework and global audit and risk team, in addition to monitoring allegation and breach trends and root causes. We continue to enhance our risk mitigation plans based on lessons learned. For example, we are taking our Brand Promoter training online to increase accessibility and our ability to track training completion.

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 also work with our suppliers to assess risk and help them meet our standards.

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

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