Respect for human rights is an absolute requirement of the JT Group’s, and JTI UK’s, approach to sustainability. We are committed to respecting human rights across our global operations and supply chain. Valuing the rights of every individual is central to the way we do business.
You can read further details about our commitment to Human Rights in the JT Human Rights Report.
The report contains information on our Human Rights Strategy which is aligned to the framework provided by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and our Code of Conduct – which provides guidance to employees to uphold a culture of integrity in all that we do.
To strengthen the focus of our policies and programmes on human rights areas that matter most, it is crucial to understand our salient human rights issues.
According to the UNGPs Framework:
“A company’s salient human rights issues are those human rights that stand out because they are at risk of the most severe negative impact through the company’s activities or business relationships”. The concept of salience focuses on the risk to people, not to the business, and impacts are prioritized according to their severity and likelihood.
Our nine salient issues:
Child labour
Environmental impacts
Fair wage
Forced labour/modern slavery
Harassment and gender impacts
Health and safety
Health risk
Non-discrimination and equality
Working hours
JTI’s stance is clear: child labour is an unacceptable practice that has no place in our supply chain. However, that doesn’t mean child labour is a simple problem with a simple solution – far from it.
We know that to help make child labour a thing of the past, we have to work with our tobacco growers, their communities, governments and other partners to understand the root cause of the problem and provide long-term solutions. That’s where ARISE – our flagship program aiming to eliminate child labour in Brazil, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia and Bangladesh – comes in.
Every child in these communities has a right to a decent level of education; making that a reality forms the central focus of our efforts to stamp out child labour.
We were categorized as a ‘leader’ by the Global Child Forum in their latest study of just under 700 of the world’s largest companies, conducted in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group. We are proud that the study recognizes the concrete actions we have taken to embed respect for children’s rights in our supply chain.
We work closely with contracted tobacco leaf growers and merchants to identify potential labour challenges and improve labour practices on tobacco farms. ALP consists of three key pillars and is based on the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) recommendations:
Tackling child labour
Respect for the rights of workers
Ensuring workplace health and safety
We have set ourselves a global target of implementing the ALP programme in all sourcing countries by 2025.
To identify the nature and assess the extent of human rights risks, JTI conducts Human Rights Impact Assessments (HRIAs). In line with the UNGPs, HRIAs focus on the greatest risk to people, both within JTI and through business relationships with our suppliers. JTI has a dual approach to assessments, we conduct HRIAs across our whole value chain and operations, and we also conduct more thorough HRIAs in our Leaf farming communities as these require root cause analysis.
Once the HRIA has been conducted, an action plan is produced with an agreed timeline, and Human Rights champions are appointed, as part of a network. Their responsibility is to ensure that action plans are managed and implemented by each country, and respect for human rights is firmly established in the business.
We have set ourselves a global target to assess 100% of high-risk countries where we operate in by 2025.
To embed and improve employees’ understanding of the human rights implications of business decisions, JTI provides regular training and continuously shares information about human rights and the JT Group Human Rights Policy.
To create a global culture around equality, respect and human rights, in 2022 we launched a new company wide human rights e-learning module, which has been recognized through a total of three Gold and two Silver awards by ACE Awards New York and ICE Awards London. The platform was made accessible to all JTI employees via desktop and mobile and in 37 languages. The platform offers a new way of learning about human rights through dynamic and interactive bite-size content. The award-winning training helps to enable employees to spot human rights impacts and prevent abuses occurring in our workforce and supply chain, working to instill a better understanding of how these issues play out in practice, using practical everyday examples.
Since 2021, JTI UK has included sustainability in our tender process as one of the criteria we use to decide which goods and services we procure and which suppliers we work with. This supports the UK Market ambition to become more sustainable in all that we do. Tenders include questions on Human Rights, about areas such as good employment practice and the key steps organisations are taking to mitigate modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains.
Our sustainability approach follows the direction set by our corporate purpose towards creating a better future, focusing on our products and wider society, including people and planet. Click below to read about how responsible business is embedded throughout the work of our UK business.
JTI UK strongly opposes modern slavery and is committed to take a consistent, sustainable and continuous improvement approach to ensure that this unlawful practice does not occur in our operations and supply chain. In doing so, we aim to demonstrate our unreserved support for the elimination of modern slavery from 21st century commercial enterprise