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Human rights and modern slavery

Respecting human rights

At NatWest Group, we understand that businesses have an important role to play in promoting respect for human rights and continue to align our approach to internationally recognised human rights standards including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

In December 2023 we published our Salient Human Rights Issues (PDF 358KB).

We have established a policy framework to respect and promote human rights with our customers, our colleagues and our suppliers. These are reflected in our Human Rights Position Statement (PDF 1.3MB) which was reviewed and updated in 2022.

We regularly engage with stakeholders around our responsibilities to respect human rights and are members of the Thun Group, which discusses how the financial services sector can incorporate and embed the UNGPs into their due diligence processes. Throughout 2023, we participated in several indices and benchmarks which helped to inform our activity and identify opportunities to continually improve and evolve our approach.

We have established a Human Rights Action Group, a management group that brings representatives from across NatWest Group together to coordinate our activities, and to make recommendations to the NatWest Group Executive Committee and Board to develop and strengthen our approach

We are continually evolving our approach and our Sustainable Banking team welcome any input or feedback from stakeholders. 

Environmental, Social and Ethical (ESE) Human Rights Risk Acceptance Criteria (RAC)

During 2023, we developed a standalone ESE Human Rights RAC which applies requirements around human rights due diligence to additional sectors with heightened human rights risk not already covered by an ESE RAC. It is in addition to checks undertaken as part of our customer due diligence processes and is also intended to help us capture data over time on concerns mapped to our salient human rights issues to ensure we better understand and address human rights risks. We intend to test, evolve and adapt the scope of our ESE Human Rights RAC to continually improve its effectiveness.

Tackling modern slavery and human trafficking

Modern slavery and human trafficking affect an extraordinary number of people and are among the fastest growing criminal industries and the biggest human rights crises of today.

Our approach to modern slavery and human trafficking is continuously evolving to ensure we keep pace with the changing external environment.

We publish an annual statement which sets out the steps that we are taking to identify and address modern slavery and human trafficking within our own operation and throughout our value chain.

Our current Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement (year end 2022) can be found below alongside our previous statements. 

 

Our Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement 

2022 Statement (PDF 1.8MB)

2021 Statement (PDF 637KB)

2020 Statement (PDF 774KB)

2019 Statement (PDF 283KB)

2018 Statement (PDF 348KB)

2017-2018 Statement (PDF 177KB)

2016-2017 Statement (PDF 118KB)

Interim Statement (PDF 60 KB)

 

For more details, please see our 2023 ESG Disclosures Report (PDF 8.8MB)

Related content

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We have an ambition to create a diverse and responsible supply chain, be fair and transparent with our suppliers and reach net zero by 2050 across our operational value chain.

The FCA’s Consumer Duty regulation came into force for existing and new products and services in July 2023. Find out more about our efforts to establish appropriate standards, tools and frameworks.