Print This PageCorporate Responsibility
Adoption of a Human Rights Policy for Our Company
In
April 2006, Monsanto Company's board of directors formally adopted a human
rights policy for our company. The policy, a manifestation of the company's
values as stated in Monsanto's Pledge, emphasizes our commitment to the protection
and advancement of human rights. It includes provisions on child labor, forced
labor, compensation, working hours, harassment and violence, discrimination,
safety, and freedom of association. The Human Rights Policy in several languages
is available on our human rights
page.
Our human rights policy was guided by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights as well as the International Labor Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Development of the policy included consideration of the global nature of our business and the circumstances unique to agriculture. In addition, consistent with our Pledge values — especially dialogue and transparency — the policy was vetted with a broad group of internal and external stakeholders. We believe this approach was valuable and essential in creating a policy that is appropriate for our business, considers the concerns of our shareholders, and is attentive to experts in the area.
Our company is taking a thoughtful, phased and systemic approach to implementation of the policy. We are in the early stages of our implementation efforts to support this newly adopted policy. Implementation will include communicating the policy to employees and our business partners, creating operational guidelines and a management information system, training sessions, and audits as a means to verify compliance. Monsanto will work within its business, as well as with its business partners, on a continuous improvement basis, to address noncompliance issues. Although this approach will require time and effort, we believe that it is necessary to achieve our goal of sustainable compliance.
Our strategy is to embed the human rights policy and implementation into existing business processes. To execute a global policy effectively, it is important that we make implementation inclusive. To achieve this, we will continue to work with a global, cross-functional team that guides our actions and keep regions and functional areas informed. In addition to functional representatives, the team includes regional human rights champions who work with our employees and business partners to implement the policy in their regions.
