Human rights

Regular updates on human rights are provided to Maersk’s Executive Leadership Team, as set out in our ESG governance framework. As human rights is an overarching topic, responsibility for managing particular issues lies with the respective functions with support from specific governance forums.

Building a strong human rights governance structure is a priority as we prepare for increased regulatory requirements. In 2022, we identified relevant internal governance forums and worked to strengthen the incorporation of human rights within their scope.

Maersk's Human Rights Policy Statement outlines our commitment to respect human rights based on international standards, and is complemented by our Employee and Supplier Codes of Conduct.

Additionally, Maersk reports annually on how we identify, avoid, and mitigate modern slavery risks in the APMM Modern Slavery Statement.

We conduct human rights assessments to understand our potential and actual human rights risks and impacts in our operations and value chain. In 2021 we refreshed the definition of our salient human rights risks through a corporate-wide human rights assessment, conducted by external experts using the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights framework:

Our prioritised salient human rights impacts are:

• Working conditions in the supply chain
• Health and safety in the supply chain
• Violence and harassment at work 
• Access to remedy
• Impacts of climate change and decarbonisation (just transition)

We continue to define action plans and prioritise areas for action based on our risk assessments. Our progress is communicated on our website, in our Sustainability Report and our Modern Slavery Statements.

• Direct employees (permanent and temporary) across all operations, including seafarers.
• Third party contractors and indirect employees (including third party labour working on Maersk ships or sites).
• Supply chain workers (including suppliers' employees working outside of Maersk sites).
• Local communities near Maersk operations and supply chain, including those potentially impacted by infrastructure developments (including terminals and shipping routes), environmental damage caused by shipping and logistics (including pollution from fuel or abandoned containers), waste, and supply chain material or goods production activities.

We provide grievance mechanisms to our employees and other parties who want to voice their concerns about our practices and have them addressed.

The Maersk Whistleblower System is a confidential channel administered by an independent company through which anyone can raise concerns about suspected serious violations of laws, including human rights and labour rights.

The Maersk Ombudsperson is a neutral, independent, informal and 100% confidential function that serves our employees when they do not feel comfortable reporting grievances to human resources departments, line managers or through the Whistleblower System.

We continuously work to strengthen these mechanisms to provide even better protection for everyone affected by our activities. Every report and complaint is handled with care and treated as a valuable input that motivates us to critically evaluate our processes and policies and improve them if necessary.

We recognise our responsibility to respect human rights in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Human rights impacts may occur in different business areas. We therefore take a risk-based approach to our activities and continuously strengthen key due-diligence processes that allow us to identify and act upon actual and potential human rights risks for our rightsholders. In 2022, we further embedded ESG risk analysis (including human rights) into M&A processes and we continue to strengthen the implementation of human rights risk management in our Sustainable Procurement Programme.