2020 Universal registration document and annual financial report - BNP PARIBAS 619
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A COMMITTED BANK: INFORMATION CONCERNING THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, CIVIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY OF BNP PARIBAS
Duty of Care and Modern Slavery Act and Human Trafficking statement
INTRODUCTION This Statement(1) outlines the steps that BNP Paribas has taken to ensure that modern slavery(2) and human trafficking(3), are not taking place in its direct or suppliers operations. It also refers to the risk management processes that the Group has put in place in the context of its financing and investment activities, which govern the potential cases of human rights violations that may affect the activities of its clients. This Statement is for the financial year ended 31 December 2020. The Board and CEO attest annually that the Group complies with this Statement through the information provided by the respective departments of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Group Strategic Sourcing and Human Resources.
THE BNP PARIBAS GROUP BNP Paribas is Europe s leading provider of banking and financial services. It operates in sixty-eight countries, and employs 193,319 FTE workers.
BNP Paribas holds key positions in its two main businesses: Retail Banking and Services (Domestic Markets and International Financial Services, such as personal finance, insurance and wealth & asset management) and Corporate and Institutional Banking (corporate banking, global markets and securities services). More information on BNP Paribas operations can be found in Presentation of operating divisions and business lines.
BNP Paribas purchases around EUR 9 billion of expenditures on a yearly basis to support its activities. Its suppliers belong to the nine following categories: Real Estate, Market & Data Information, Marketing & Communication, Consumables & General Services, Banking Services, Professional Services, Technology, Transaction Fees and Travel.
RISKS OF MODERN SLAVERY & HUMAN TRAFFICKING Academic studies, field investigations and recent news coverage have all clearly demonstrated that all sectors, industries and areas may be affected, to varying degrees, by these types of serious infringements to human rights.
In this regard, risk assessment policies devoted to the matter of modern slavery practices need to be multi-factorial (with complementary thematic screenings performed, on sector & industry, products & services, geographical and entity level) and regularly updated, in order to tackle this complex issue as fully and efficiently as possible. The risk-assessment process BNP Paribas implements to address the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking takes into account the vastly different situations of its stakeholders, without in any way ignoring, underplaying or diminishing the principles at stake. This process is complemented by the thematic watch performed by several teams of the Group on this subject.
Workforce s inherent risks
Risks of modern slavery and human trafficking have been deemed low in business operations as, to the best of our knowledge, no publicly available study has categorized the banking sector and its employees, most of them being highly skilled professionals, as particularly exposed to these practices.
Suppliers inherent risks
As a bank, BNP Paribas supply chains are mainly focused on indirect procurements and expenditure (consulting services, IT services, security, IT equipment, office furniture, promotional items, cleaning and catering services). Depending on the procurement categories, supply chains may be simple or very complex, with human rights related risks being higher, and more difficult to monitor, where supply chain arrangements are complex. Based on the risk mapping tool developed by BNP Paribas, less than 25% of the Group procurement categories are at high risk of modern slavery or child labour.
Banking and Financial activities inherent risks
BNP Paribas, as a leading global bank, serves millions of individual customers and professionals, entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized enterprises and large corporate clients in industries with multiple environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, and operates in countries where legal and governance systems are at diverse levels of development. This diversity of context calls for structured, comprehensive and expert-driven review and analysis processes, in order to identify potential risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in BNP Paribas clients activities.
BNP PARIBAS POLICY ON MODERN SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING Respecting and upholding of human rights is paramount to BNP Paribas, and the Group has committed itself to the promotion of the following principles, texts and declarations, which are the base on which its CSR strategy is built:
■ The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals;
■ The Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact;
■ The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights;
■ The internationally-accepted OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises;
■ The internationally-accepted standards of human rights, as defined in the International Bill of Human Rights;
■ The core labor standards set out by the International Labor Organization.
(1) This Statement applies to all companies within the BNP Paribas Group that are required to have a slavery and modern trafficking statement, except where they have chosen to produce their own statement.
(2) Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." United Nations Convention on Slavery.
(3) Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation , United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
STATEMENT ON MODERN SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING