The search for oil and gas can take energy companies to places with poor human rights records. This clearly presents challenges and requires making trade-offs. Refusing to operate allows access to less-principled competitors. Staying in such countries puts a company at risk of being seen as complicit in a government’s practices. We decide our approach case-by-case, based on whether we are able to follow our Business Principles.
We assess the human rights risks faced by our projects and operations using tools developed by the Danish Institute for Human Rights. One of these compares local laws and practices with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and 80 other international treaties. Where it identifies risks, we develop action plans to avoid violating rights in these areas. Another tool checks that our company procedures comply with local laws and regulations. In Brazil, for example, these tools highlighted further efforts for us to live by our commitment to be equal opportunity employers, and meet government requirements that the disabled make up at least 5% of a company’s workforce. As a result, Shell Brazil introduced new programmes to encourage the hiring of disabled people, including promoting their professional training with the help of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that work in this area.
In 2007, we began working more closely with International Alert, an NGO specialising in peace-building. The aim is to reduce the chance that our business policies and practices unintentionally create conflict or make it worse. Starting in 2008, International Alert’s experts will work with our staff on the ground in some sensitive locations, and develop conflict avoidance training for wider use in Shell.
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