Human Rights

The Group continued to address human rights issues in key business decision-making processes in 2009. These issues are now included in the risk review that accompanies every major project, in the evaluation of potential and current suppliers, and in a checklist for potential acquisitions.

ABB seeks to be a force for good in the communities where it operates and for society as a whole. One element of its core business – the provision of electrical power – gives people better access to human rights such as health care, education and housing. Still, the benefits and disadvantages of each project need to be carefully weighed.

Besides working to improve its own performance, ABB actively supports international initiatives, such as the UN Global Compact and the Global Business Initiative on Human Rights, to strengthen business understanding of human rights issues and best practice.

Relevant Human Rights GRI indicators to ABB

All countries reported figures for the average hours of organized classroom training per employee per year, which excludes on the job training. All countries and regions also reported figures for the percentage of women in senior executive, senior and middle management ranks. ABB selects different countries to report on each year. Figures for these countries for both indicators are given in the table below:

	Training hours per employee			Percentage of women in management
	2009	2008	2007	2009	2008	2007
Argentina	12	15	9	1	0.5	n.a.
Bulgaria	9	6	n.a.	35	40	n.a.
Estonia	9	16	n.a.	15	8	31
Finland	24	24	25	13	13	12
Germany	15	16	11	3	2	0
Indonesia	16	8	n.a.	3	1	n.a.
Kenya	16	n.a.	50	17	n.a.	0
Kuwait	20	100	n.a.	0	0	n.a.
New Zealand	16	16	28	5	5	35
Norway	10	10	15	18	19	17
Qatar	22	20	n.a.	17	20	n.a.
South Africa	40	40	16	14	14	15
South Korea	17	21	20	5	5	5
Spain	27	21	21	9	1*	1*
Turkey	21	14	n.a.	13	17	n.a.
US	25	25	20	1	2	2

*Note that these data represent only women in the senior executive.

ABB maintains and regularly reviews a list of sensitive countries where it has, or considers engaging in business operations. Human rights, as well as legal, financial and security criteria, are included in risk assessments, and are among the factors in deciding whether ABB does business in a particular country.

Based partly or wholly on human rights considerations, ABB has not taken any business with Myanmar or North Korea for several years. ABB completed its withdrawal from Sudan at the end of June 2009, having taken no new business in the country since January 2007.

ABB has incorporated social performance criteria, including human rights performance, into its suppliers’ qualification process (SQP) requirements. SQP is used in ABB’s purchasing contracts. To date, 32 countries apply the sustainability section of SQP for their key suppliers and approximately 1,000 SQP assessments have been carried out.

The human rights performance of key suppliers forms part of ABB’s screening and auditing protocol.

All countries in ABB’s sustainability management program are asked to report any incidents of discrimination. No incidents were reported in 2009.

Informal training on the human rights issues has been ongoing in 2009. Personnel in countries such as Brazil, Colombia, China, Philippines, Russia and Saudi Arabia are among those receiving such training. Formal training, based on the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights, is planned for security personnel in 2010, to be completed in 2011. ABB requires due diligence on all security companies according to ABB and international standards and will establish standard operating procedures for security providers, to include instructions on human rights issues.

All countries in ABB’s sustainability management program are asked to report any incidents of indigenous rights violations. No such incidents were reported in 2009.

ABB employees receive training on environmental and social aspects, which include human rights. Average overall training hours per employee for a number of selected countries are given under indicator LA10 on page 8. However, these figures are not broken down to show only human rights training.

Freedom of association and collective bargaining, child labor, forced or compulsory labor
There were no ABB operations identified during 2009 to be at significant risk concerning employee rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, incidents of child labor, or incidents of forced or compulsory labor.