Enterprise governance and compliance

Nedbank Group and human rights – the UN Global Compact

Respecting human rights in all its business activities is fundamental to the way Nedbank Group operates. This it does through compliance with South Africa’s comprehensive bill of rights as contained in the Constitution and within labour legislation. Necessary consideration is given to the impact of human rights in the group’s corporate responsibility policy and the bank also participates in the United Nations Environment Programme: Finance Initiatives (UNEP FI) working group, which specifically promotes the importance of human rights within the financial sector.

The Nedbank Group continues to support the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact in respect of human rights, labour rights, environmental protection and anti-corruption. We are proud to be a signatory to this global compact and strive to advancing these principles within our sphere of influence. For more information on the UN Global Compact principles and Nedbank’s involvement refer to www.nedbankgroup.co.za (Corporate Citizenship/United Nations Global Compact).

The past few years have seen Nedbank Group working with the South African Human Rights Commission and the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship to develop a customised human rights compliance assessment tool for South Africa.

The Human Rights and Business Project South Africa focuses on the development of a basic human rights and business approach for companies. The project, which was initiated by the Dutch NGO Aim for Human Rights, aims to enhance the capacity of selected civil society and business organisations in South Africa in order to use and promote the human rights and business tools, as well as to raise awareness about human rights and business among both civil society and the private sector. Since its inception in 2007 the project has been driven solely through donor funding. From January 2009 it is envisaged that the project will be driven through a combination of private sector support and donor funding. The Secretariat for the project, the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship, has approached Nedbank to become one of the key private sector supporters of the project by taking up platinum sponsorship of the project.

Nedbank hosted the Human Rights and Business Conference together with the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship and the Human Rights Commission of South Africa on 18 and 19 March 2008.