To guide our approach, Greif maintains human rights and fair labor practices in accordance with the Prinzipien des UN Global Compact and the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We have committed to enforcing these Principles, both internally and across our supply chain, through policies concerning Anti-harassment, Kinderarbeit, Verhaltenskodex, Chancengleichheit und Vielfalt, Fair Treatment of Others, Menschenrechte Und Verhaltenskodex für Lieferanten.

Additional mechanisms to protect human rights include Greif’s local HR teams conducting risk assessments, age and legal working status verifications, and awareness training. We have also instituted localized gender equality procedures and whistleblower procedures into our operations. To enable our colleagues to anonymously report at any time potential human rights violations, we publicly post our global Ethics Line in all facilities and include Ethics Line details in the Code of Conduct. We instantly direct each complaint to a regional vice president or director so it can be addressed appropriately. We investigated and resolved 98.5 percent of complaints in 2021. The remaining complaints are under investigation.

In 2021, 46 percent of Greif’s colleagues engaged in collective bargaining agreements (CBA). Each CBA is independently managed in each region with our Human Resources and Legal teams providing oversight. For further information on Greif’s approach to labor relations, please see Risikomanagement und Geschäftskontinuität.

Our Human Rights and Labor Practices team is led by EMEA’s Regional Human Resources Director with support from members of the human resources community who represent every region and business unit. We have developed a pragmatic, consistent program to identify human rights and labor risks in all our facilities, allowing us to identify mitigating actions and implement best-practice actions and solutions in line with our commitments to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UN Global Compact, ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights frameworks. In 2021, we continued our human rights audits across 35 additional Greif sites in 9 countries. The results from this round of audits are due in March 2022 and will enable us to identify possible concerns and to develop appropriate global and local responses. Further audits are planned for 2022 as we progress towards our 2025 goal to review human rights in 100 percent of our global facilities.