Recommitting to the respect of human rights

Human rights make life worth living. They recognise our freedom to make choices about our lives and to develop our potential as human beings. They are about living a dignified life free from discrimination, fear, and harassment.

I was blessed with a childhood in which my rights, and the rights of my parents and younger siblings, were acknowledged. Growing up in a small countryside town in the Netherlands, we lived a village life that was free and open. My parents instilled in us the values of honesty and hard work, and we were encouraged to be – and celebrated for being - who we wanted to be.

But I’m all too aware that not everyone is as fortunate and it’s for this reason I feel a sense of responsibility to do what I can to advance human rights in both my personal and professional endeavours.

We need to future-proof social equity

Next year marks 75 years since the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). That’s three quarters of a century articulating and striving for the broad range of fundamental rights and freedoms to which all are entitled, simply by being born.

Since the UDHR’s adoption, it’s influenced the development of international human rights law and advanced regional frameworks, and we’ve seen it being cited by countries all over the world.

Despite this, over the last few years, the world has seen deepening poverty, rising inequalities, structural and entrenched discrimination, and other gaps in human rights protection.

This lack of resilience is proof that simply achieving the minimum standards of the day won’t suffice, because there will always be a new challenge around the corner waiting to set us back.

This Human Rights Day is an opportunity to recommit to the respect of human rights and consider what Governments need to do differently to broaden access to them. Because one thing is for sure, if all we do is strive for the minimum, universal social equity will continue to evade us.

Mobilising the human collective

Transformational change requires a team effort and, in this case, we need a team of eight billion. ?

At Unilever, we’re using our scale and reach to respect and promote human rights by working only with like-minded partners who can meet our terms of trade. Since 2014, we’ve communicated these requirements through our supplier-facing Responsible Sourcing Policy (RSP) and our distributor and customer-facing Responsible Business Partner Policy (RBPP). As the demands of people and planet evolve, we’re evolving too, streamlining our efforts and updating our requirements to ensure they continue to advance human rights in today’s world.

That’s why, on 8 December we launched our new Responsible Partner Policy. Our RPP brings together our RSP and RBPP to create a single policy. It outlines our commitment to responsible business with the respect for human rights as its foundation, particularly in the context of modern-day challenges for society and our planet.

More of the same isn’t enough

We base our human rights commitments in the Fundamental Principles of the RPP on the International Bill of Human Rights. As such, these are really the minimum standards we expect of our business partners and, alone, they won’t be enough to generate the meaningful transformation we seek. That’s why our RPP also encourages the development of leading practices; novel, scalable solutions that can generate new levels of positive change in society.

One of the Fundamental Principles of our RPP is for all workers to be paid fair wages. As part of this, we want to see partners paying a living wage, so we’ve made doing so a Future Mandatory Requirement which we expect our partners to prepare for. As a business, we have committed to ensuring everyone who directly provides goods and services to Unilever will?earn at least a living wage or a living income by 2030. To support and track partner efforts, we launched the Living Wage/Living Income Promise in 2021 through which we share our own living wage journey and offer guidance to those intent on joining our efforts to improving lives and livelihoods and strengthening business resilience.

Similarly, our Unilever's Supplier Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Promise invites partners to demonstrate that addressing the social inequality in our value chains is of paramount importance to them.

For humans to thrive, nature must too

Respect for human rights underpins all of Unilever’s Compass goals. Whether we’re committing to eliminating GHG emissions, reducing waste, or improving health and wellbeing, it’s all driven by a respect for human rights.

One way we are using nature-based solutions to advance social equity is through our rural dairy farmers initiative in India. Together with on-the-ground experts, Mooo Farms, we’re working to reach 1000 farmers across eight villages who supply milk to Unilever’s dairy supplier in Nabha, Patiala, in Punjab. Together we are helping to share knowledge and implement best practices to improve cattle health and welfare and boost milk yields. In doing so, we hope to boost farmer incomes, lift dairy farming households out of poverty, and reduce GHG emissions.?Our aim is that, by 2025, we can cover over 3000 farmers across several Indian districts and increase dairy farmer income by 35%.

Not only are initiatives like this the right thing to do, but they also lead to a better performing company.

Let’s do better, together

I’m proud of the fact that this year Unilever has once again ranked first - out of 127 companies -?in the Corporate Human Rights Benchmark, as assessed by the World Benchmarking Alliance. Despite this acknowledgement, we know more needs to be done to progress our own scores and support the improvement of our peers’ results too, as we collectively seek to address ongoing endemic human rights issues in global value chains.??

It’s time for us all to consider what stretching ambitions we can set to deliver meaningful change. Sure, we must get the basics right first in our homes, workplaces, and communities, but if that’s all we do, future humanity will still be left wanting.

As famous English playwright John Heywood once said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.” ?Let’s continue to lay bricks together in the fight for universal human rights and, as we build on our foundations with leading practices that serve both people and nature, let’s aspire to build a world where every human is afforded the birth right to be?free and equal in dignity and?rights.