Human Rights

Understanding our impacts

We understand that our operations can impact the social and cultural wellbeing of the communities where we are active. For this reason, we endeavour to understand and minimise any negative impacts and enhance positive impacts through meaningful engagement. We emphasise open and transparent communication and feedback on all our activities.

We conduct Social Impact Assessments (SIA) for all major development activities and use five-yearly social scans to inform our management plans as appropriate.

Embedding human rights into our approach

Woodside’s approach to human rights is overseen by our Executive Committee and the Board. Woodside’s Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) meets on a regular basis to support an integrated approach to human rights across the business and consider opportunities to improve our performance. The HRWG consists of representatives from a range of functions including corporate affairs, contracting and procurement, legal and security and emergency management.

Human rights principles and commitments are included in Woodside’s Code of Conduct, which sets out the standard of behaviour expected of all Woodside personnel. It is the responsibility of every director, employee and contractor to be familiar and comply with the Code. All employees, contractors and service providers undergo mandatory training on the Code when they join the company and annual compliance training thereafter. An external expert provided human rights and modern slavery awareness sessions to our Executive Committee and Board in late 2018 and an employee training module will be launched in early 2019. Managers are also responsible for promoting the Human Rights Policy in joint ventures where Woodside is non-operator.

Human Rights Due Diligence

Woodside has a Human Rights Due Diligence Procedure that requires the company to undertake human rights due diligence for activities in high-risk locations where Woodside is the operator, every two years. Human rights due diligence assesses actual and potential risk to people as a result of our activities and can be undertaken as a stand-alone assessment or integrated into wider social and environmental impact assessments. In the event that we cause or contribute to an adverse human rights impact, or have the potential to do so, we will take necessary steps to cease or prevent the impacts and mitigate any remaining impact.

Refer to our Community Concerns page for more information around how we manage and respond to grievances.