Human Rights Governance

Human Rights Governance

Respect for human rights is woven through everything we do at The Coca‐Cola Company. Our program is built to align with the Guiding Principles and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The rights underpinning our commitment are drawn from the International Bill of Human Rights, the ILO Core Conventions, and other instruments foundational to the dignity of vulnerable stakeholders.

“Our company’s purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference. As a global business, this includes a focus on respecting human rights in our own business, as well as our supply chain. We’re doing our part while working extensively with others because broad collaboration is essential to create lasting changes. We’re committed to acting with speed to address the many changes we continually see around the world.”

James Quincey, Chairman and CEO of The Coca‑Cola Company

Policies

Human Rights Policy

We strive to respect and promote human rights in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in our relationships with our employees, suppliers and independent bottlers. Our Human Rights Policy applies to The Coca‑Cola Company, owned entities, entities where it holds a majority interest, and facilities it manages.

Translations of the Human Rights Policy in additional languages is in progress.

Supplier Guiding Principles

The Human Rights Policy’s precepts are extended across our supply chain through our Supplier Guiding Principles. They ensure that companies supplying us with goods and services, including our bottling partners, adhere to the same values and expectations that we require of ourselves.

Principles of Sustainable Agriculture

Our Principles of Sustainable Agriculture extend our human rights expectations beyond our tier‐one agricultural suppliers by requiring these suppliers to certify that their farm‐level suppliers comply with our company’s sustainable agriculture principles based on essential environmental, social, and economic criteria.

Oversight & Due Diligence

The Coca‑Cola Company's human rights program is overseen by our Global Vice President for Human Rights, who reports regularly to the Company’s Chief Executive Officer and Board of Directors. The Global Human Rights department spearheads the Company’s human rights strategy and programs, providing regular updates to the Board on our salient risks, performance, and evolving expectations across our global value chain.

In line with the UN Guiding Principles, we carry out human rights due diligence across our value chain. We regularly assess our key human rights risks to ensure that we are taking sufficient steps to identify and address them and, if needed, to support the remediation of impacts.
 

2022 Highlights

- We conducted a global human rights risk assessment

- We conducted a global human rights governance assessment

- We conducted 2,770 audits of supplier facilities 

Timeline of Our Human Rights Journey

Launched the Supplier Guiding Principles

Creation of the Global Workplace Rights department

Worked to support the mandate of Professor John Ruggie, in development of a framework for respecting human rights in a business context

Launched our Human Rights Statement and Workplace Rights Policy

Developed the Coca‑Cola SGP findings matrix and quarterly scorecard to monitor performance along with newly created auditor training

Hosted our first Human Rights Conference, now an annual forum on Business and Human Rights

Initiated a global-local strategy to address child labor in agriculture

Formally endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

Launched our Global Mutual Respect Policy

Initiated our Country Studies focused on our sugar supply chain

Launched our comprehensive Human Rights Policy, combining our Human Rights Statement, Workplace Rights Policy and Global Mutual Respect Policy

Conducted a series of workshops system wide to identify our salient human rights risks

The three principles of ethical recruitment and employment of migrant workers included in SGP requirements

Released our first standalone Human Rights Report

Updated our Human Rights Policy after extensive stakeholder consultation

Human Rights Due Diligence added to the World Without Waste protocol

Released summary report of our country studies

In collaboration with Cutrale, The Coca‑Cola Foundation and Innocent drinks, initiated a project around citrus in Brazil to support smallholders in the citrus belt region

Launch of Real IMPACT

More About Human Rights

Human Rights @ The Coca‐Cola Company

Respect for human rights is fundamental to The Coca‑Cola Company, where our purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference.

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Stories of Impact

We partner with stakeholders and peers to drive meaningful change across our value chain.

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