Investor Presentaiton
Principle 1
Principle 2
Principles for Responsible Banking continued
Reporting and self-assessment requirements
07
Barclays PLC
home.barclays/annualreport
Principle 3
Principle 4
Principle 5
Principle 6
High-level summary of bank's response
(limited assurance required for responses to highlighted items)
Human rights
Barclays operates in accordance with the International Bill of Human Rights and takes account of other internationally accepted
human rights standards, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). We respect and promote
human rights in our own operations through our employment policies and practices and our supply chain through screening and
engagement.
In 2021, we have initiated a strategic exercise to identify the salient human rights risks associated with our client financing portfolio.
Over time, this will enable us to focus our client due diligence efforts and disclosures on the issues that pose the greatest risk to
people. We intend to provide more information on this assessment and our plan for enhancing our approach to identification and
management of salient human rights risks in future reports.
We are working to embed human rights considerations into our position statements and related due diligence approach for clients
operating in sectors with elevated environmental and social impacts. For example, we include specific questions around respect for
Indigenous Peoples' rights, health and safety and provision of security into our due diligence questionnaires for clients in energy
subsectors such as fracking and oil sands which are covered under our Climate Change Statement.
In 2021, we established a tailored due diligence questionnaire for clients covered by our Forestry and Agricultural Commodities
Statement. In recognition of the potential impacts that the production of commodities such as timber products or palm oil may have
on Indigenous Peoples, through this questionnaire we will assess each client's approach to consulting with these groups. We will
evaluate whether their approach is consistent with the principles of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in order to gain assurance
that the client will respect the rights of Indigenous People potentially impacted by its operations.
Outside of our established sector statements we are working to proactively monitor for events and developments globally that
may present new human rights risks and work to investigate our potential exposure to these. For example, this year we identified
renewable energy supply chains and the surveillance technology sector as two areas that are increasingly linked with human rights
risks such as forced labour. In response, we initiated a portfolio review of our exposure to companies involved in these sectors in a
region with heightened exposure to these risks. We subsequently conducted due diligence on identified clients and are engaging with
a selection of prioritised clients to further assess their risk management approach and evaluate whether they are taking appropriate
steps to address these risks.
For more information, see the 'Managing impacts in lending and financing' section in the Barclays PLC Annual Report 2021 and
Barclays' Group Statements on Human Rights and Modern Slavery on our ESG resource hub.
References
Links to bank's full response/
relevant information
PRB Reporting and self-assessment 2021View entire presentation