ABB is committed to maintaining high social, environmental, human rights, ethical and governance standards for the benefit of all stakeholders. Corporate responsibility reflects the company’s values and behavior to its stakeholders.
The company has several policies and standards in place to underpin those core values, covering business ethics and governance, the Code of Conduct, and policies such as the Group Social and Human Rights policies. These are all supported by internal Group directives and instructions.
There are many stakeholders impacted by ABB policies and performance, ranging from employees and subcontractors to customers, suppliers and communities where ABB has operations.The company recognizes the importance of wide-ranging stakeholder engagement to help it achieve best practice and sustainable benefit for stakeholders. Sustainability experts within the company also work with business divisions and other group functions to raise awareness of potential risk and improve performance.
One of the core areas of corporate responsibility is human rights. ABB is seeking to raise its standards, and increase its understanding and mitigation of human rights risk. A Human Rights policy and public statement were approved in 2007, complementing existing policies for raising social, environmental, health and safety and business ethics performance.
Another area of focus is corporate citizenship initiatives in which ABB supports communities where it operates or remote communities in India and Tanzania in the case of its rural electrification program "Access to Electricity."
ABB seeks to be a “good corporate citizen.” Constant effort, vigilance and high levels of awareness are needed to raise standards which are consistent everywhere, even in difficult environments. This is work in progress.