External environment

Human Rights

Owing to the nature of our business model and supply chain, we follow the human rights policy formulated at the international level by the Orange Group. In addition to the general framework of the International Labour Organization conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Global Impact principles, Orange Group complies with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights adopted in 2011.

The Group’s activities with respect to safeguarding fundamental human rights focus on three main areas:

• relations with employees;
• relations with suppliers;
• privacy and freedom of expression

These areas are all addressed in the Orange Polska Code of Ethics. We respect all people and their right to privacy. We accept diversity in terms of background, race, gender, culture, age and marital status as well as religious beliefs, political views and membership of social or professional organizations.

In 2018, we implemented a Supplier Code of Conduct at Orange Polska. The Code has been developed at the Orange Group level and adapted to national laws and regulations. It seeks to encourage compliance with and respect these laws and regulations, and ensure that they are faithfully and effectively enforced. Suppliers are required to respect human rights and avoid being complicit in human rights abuses of any kind.

The Code covers the following areas:

• social responsibility: freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, forced labour, child labour, diversity and non-discrimination, remuneration, working hours and health and safety;
• environmental responsibility: environmental protection, natural resources and waste management;
• prohibited business practices: anti-corruption policy, competition, sponsorship, political contributions, money laundering, data security and data protection.

The Code has been published and incorporated into our contracts with suppliers.

We are currently working on a human rights policy specific to Orange Polska. In 2018, together with the Polish Institute for Human Rights and Business, we conducted a workshop on human rights for representatives of the following units: purchase, supply chain, HR, compliance management, risk management, and CSR. The workshop was aimed at familiarising employees with the subject of human rights and identification of risk areas in this area in the company and its supply chain. The result of the workshop was a matrix mapping 33 human rights identified as relevant for Orange Polska. We also launched an e-learning training on human rights that was completed by 73% of the purchasing team.

Rights related to diversity are covered by our diversity management policy (more on p. 70); privacy and data protection by our customer safety policy.