Our approach to human rights

Woodside’s approach to human rights is overseen by our Board and the Executive Committee. The Board’s Sustainability Committee is responsible for reviewing and making recommendations to the Board on Woodside's human rights policy and performance.

Our Human Rights Policy guides our approach to respecting the rights of our employees, the communities where we operate, and people in our supply chain in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Woodside’s business conduct is informed by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The Guiding Principles define the accountabilities of governments in protecting human rights, and of business in respecting human rights.

Due Diligence

Human rights are considered throughout the life of a project, including in risk assessments and supplier selection. Human rights due diligence is mandatory for all operations and activities under our operational control in countries determined to have high human rights risk.

For non-operated activities and interests in high-risk countries, we request the operator provide the relevant human rights due diligence documentation or, if this is not available, we may undertake our own due diligence if necessary.

We also undertake human rights due diligence in the assessment of new and existing business opportunities. This involves identifying and evaluating actual or potential human rights risks to inform investment decisions and prevent or mitigate adverse impacts.

Salient human rights risk assessment

Woodside has engaged external human rights experts to conduct a salient human rights risk assessment of the company’s activities and business relationships. Importantly, this advice focuses on potential impacts on people and their human rights, and the areas identified in the risk assessment will be used to guide the management of our activities and supply chain. The scope of assessment typically includes:

• Identification and assessment of the severity of the human rights impacts that could be caused by, contributed to, or linked to our activities or business relationships 
• A review of the effectiveness of relevant management frameworks and controls 
• Recommended actions to manage risks and address any gaps in existing systems and controls

These assessments help Woodside to understand where there is the potential to have the most severe impact on rights holders and prioritise our efforts to ensure human rights are respected in connection with all of our business activities.

For more information see the ‘Our Approach to Human Rights’ document.

Human rights in our supply chain

Woodside’s Supplier Code of Business Conduct sets out our expectations from suppliers in relation to modern slavery and human rights. We oppose the occurrence of modern slavery in our operations or supply chains and expect our suppliers to adopt the same commitment.

Our supply chain human rights framework helps us to prioritise our due diligence activities. We focus our efforts on existing and potential contractors that are considered high- risk, based on the category of product or service they provide concentrating on four main areas:

• Vulnerable populations
• High-risk sectors
• High-risk business models
• High-risk geographies.
  

Our contractual terms and conditions include modern slavery provisions that provide us the right to audit and to terminate the contract.

Remediation

Woodside is committed to remedying any adverse human rights impact on an individual, worker or community that we have caused or contributed to. We will work with our suppliers if an incident is identified to remedy any adverse impacts directly linked to our supply chain.

If labour exploitation or modern slavery is identified in our supply chain, we would not immediately terminate our relationship with the supplier. Instead, we would look to work with the supplier to remedy the impact. If the supplier does not remedy the impact and demonstrate improvements in their practices, we would conclude the relationship and any contract we hold with them.

Collaborating with others on human rights

We work with our peers and key stakeholders to improve our approach to managing human rights risks in our operations and supply chains.

We participate in IPIECA; the global oil and gas association for advancing environmental and social performance across the energy transition. This includes IPIECA’s social responsibility, human rights, and supply chain groups to develop tools and share good practice to enhance our human rights performance.

We also engaged with our peers in the resources and energy sectors through the Human Rights Resources and Energy Collaborative (formerly known as the Western Australian Modern Slavery Collaborative).