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Business Principles and Social Responsibility Performance

Business ethics and compliance

OMV is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and has a Code of Business Ethics in place that applies to all employees. Although we are headquartered in Austria – a country with high business ethics standards – we operate in several countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Central and Eastern Europe that are defined as high risk by the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. We strive to avoid the risks of bribery and corruption that are specific to our sector. We also highly value our reputation. Therefore, our highest priority is ensuring uniform compliance with our business ethics standards wherever we operate. Compliance with ethical standards is a non-negotiable value that supersedes any business interest. Absolute commitment to this objective is embedded at all levels at OMV from top management to every employee. Our business partners are also expected to share the same understanding of and commitment to ethical standards. Every Company activity, from planning business strategy to daily operations, is assessed for compliance with ethical standards, such as the Code of Conduct and Code of Business Ethics.

A dedicated cross-regional compliance organization ensures that OMV standards are consistently met across the Group. In 2021, 16,020 OMV Group employees were trained in business ethics. This number is composed of 9,020 e-learnings and 477 face-to-face trainings at OMV, and 5,996 CodeOne e-learnings and 527 in-person trainings at Borealis. The Integrity Platform provides an anonymous whistleblower mechanism for OMV employees and external stakeholders, such as suppliers. They can use this platform to report issues relating to corruption, bribes, conflicts of interest, antitrust law, or capital market law. In 2021, the scope of the Integrity Platform was expanded, and the platform can now also be used to make reports of perceived violations in the following legal areas: public procurement, environmental protection, product and food safety and consumer protection, corporate tax regulations, and data protection.

Supplier Compliance

Implementing sustainable procurement means caring about the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the goods and services the Company intends to purchase. OMV has a Code of Conduct in place that ensures that suppliers support OMV’s principles. It is of paramount importance to our organization to be fully compliant with all applicable legal requirements, as well as with our internal safety, environmental protection, and human rights standards while managing our supply chain. OMV has a process in place to ensure that parties sanctioned by the EU or international organizations, such as the United Nations, are not accepted as procurement partners.

To mitigate supply chain risks including forced labor, slavery, human trafficking, and corruption, OMV imposes the legal requirements and internal rules and standards applicable to OMV on its suppliers. Our suppliers and supply chain partners are obligated to sign and fully comply with the content of the Code of Conduct. In addition, our suppliers must accept the General Conditions of Purchase, which further detail our business standards (e.g., labor rights), as an integral part of our contractual agreements. OMV reserves the right to terminate relationships with suppliers if non-compliance is discovered or not addressed in a timely manner.

Supplier prequalification is a part of pre-contractual activities during which OMV collects information from a potential supplier for the purpose of evaluating compliance with our and other sustainability requirements. The goal of the prequalification process is to screen potential suppliers before bringing them on board or during the tender stage to ensure that only those suppliers who meet our HSSE and sustainability standards can be considered for future collaboration. Following prequalification, Procurement together with business representatives select the best suppliers based on a predefined set of commercial, legal, HSSE, and technical criteria during a tender process. In 2021, we started embedding sustainability elements into the evaluation matrix (e.g., technologically innovative elements, carbon emissions, energy efficiency ) in several pilot projects.

OMV conducts supplier audits as part of the prequalification process and/or during contract execution. The aim of the audits is to measure the performance of our suppliers and define actions that will enable them to optimize their performance and meet OMV requirements. Among the focus areas of the audits are the financial stability of our suppliers, their strategy and organization, and the supply chain sustainability (e.g., human rights, carbon management, environmental management, certifications, and social responsibility). In 2021, we added a new cybersecurity dimension to our supplier audits. We also perform yearly subject-specific audits on topics such as process safety, quality, and efficiency.

In 2021, OMV joined Together for Sustainability (TfS) and expanded the membership held by Borealis since 2017 to Group level. Together for Sustainability, a joint initiative and global network of 34 chemical companies, sets the de facto global standard for environmental, social, and governance performance of chemical supply chains. The TfS program is based on the UN Global Compact and Responsible Care® principles.

OMV aims to build on Borealis’ expertise and cover a broader range of ESG assessments of our suppliers in the coming years. Becoming a TfS member will help OMV to further embed sustainability in day-to-day business operations and cascade sustainability requirements in our supply chain.

We aim to continuously manage and decrease the carbon emissions of our purchased goods and services. For this reason, OMV became a CDP Supply Chain member in 2021. As part of CDP Supply Chain, OMV invited around 140 suppliers to answer the CDP Climate Change questionnaire in 2021. In addition to reporting their emissions, we asked the suppliers whether they have carbon reduction targets in place and invited them to share with us any initiatives or projects to reduce carbon emissions in which they would like us to participate. A total of 63% of suppliers assessed by CDP Supply Chain have declared that they have climate targets in place.

Human Rights

Human rights are universal values that guide our conduct in every aspect of our activities. Our responsibilities in the area of human rights include, but are not limited to, equality and non-discrimination, decent wages, working hours, employee representation, security, primary healthcare, labor rights in the supply chain, education, poverty reduction, land rights, and free, prior, and informed consultation. OMV respects and supports human rights as described in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in internationally recognized treaties, including those of the International Labour Organization (ILO). We have been a signatory to the UN Global Compact since 2003 and are fully committed to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. We fully support the aims of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and are committed to operating our business and supply chain free of forced labor, slavery, and human trafficking. OMV considers human rights to be an important aspect of our risk management approach, which is integrated into our decision-making processes. OMV recognizes its responsibility to respect, fulfill, and support human rights in all business activities and to ensure that OMV does not become complicit in any human rights abuses as defined under current international law.

We conduct human rights risk assessments at country level to identify and assess ongoing and emerging human rights impacts and the resulting potential risks relevant to OMV business activities in the country in order to prevent and mitigate human rights risks and impacts. A total of 980 employees received training on human rights topics through the e-learning tool and in-person training sessions (2020: 2,304). As professional training is essential to ensure compliance with our human rights commitment, we have set ourselves the goal of training all employees in human rights topics by 2025. In addition, internal awareness campaigns on human rights were implemented. In 2021, seven incidents of human rights grievances were reported (2020: 0), related to aspects such as working hours and rest times and alleged cases of bullying, harassment, defamation, unfair treatment and disrespectful behavior.

Community Relations and Development

OMV maintains an active partnership with local communities in all countries in which the Company does business and is committed to adding value to these societies. As part of OMV’s stakeholder dialogue, we have implemented community grievance mechanisms at all operating sites. In 2021, OMV registered 884 grievances (2020: 812) from the community grievance mechanisms. All of the grievances were handled in accordance with OMV’s localized Community Grievance Management (CGM) procedures, which stipulate a stringent approach to systematically receiving, documenting, addressing, and resolving grievances in all of the countries where we operate.

OMV has set the goal of aligning the CGM system at all sites with the effectiveness criteria of the United Nations Guiding Principles. We are striving to achieve this target by conducting assessments that include reviews of management processes and consultations with internal and external stakeholders. The assessments result in recommendations and tailored action plans to improve grievance management at site level. The action plans are implemented by local management and monitored by headquarters. The sites already assessed represent 99% of all registered grievances at OMV in 2021.

For more information about OMV’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) ratings and the indices in which OMV is included, see the chapter OMV on the Capital Markets.

For management approaches and performance details for all material topics, see the stand-alone OMV Sustainability Report. This report also serves as the separate consolidated non-financial report of OMV Aktiengesellschaft in accordance with section 267a of the Austrian Commercial Code (UGB).

HSSE
Health, Safety, Security, and Environment
KPI
Key Performance Indicator
OECD
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development