Mercedes-Benz AG
Mercedesstraße 120
70372 Stuttgart
Germany
Phone: +49 7 11 17-0
E-Mail: dialog@mercedes-benz.com
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Represented by the Board of Management:
Ola Källenius, Chairman; Jörg Burzer, Renata Jungo Brüngger, Sabine Kohleisen, Markus Schäfer, Britta Seeger, Hubertus Troska, Harald Wilhelm
Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Martin Brudermüller
Court of Registry: Stuttgart; commercial register no. 762873
VAT ID: DE 32 12 81 763
All information about our products can be found on your country-specific Mercedes-Benz product page.
Identify and avoid risks
The Human Rights Respect System (HRRS) is Mercedes-Benz's human rights due diligence approach. It is designed to identify and avoid systemic risks and possible negative effects of our business activities on human rights at an early stage. The HRRS especially focuses on the risks faced by affected individuals on the ground.
In our Integrity Code and our Principles of Social Responsibility and Human Rights, we commit ourselves to respect and uphold all internationally recognized human rights within our company as well as throughout our supply chain. All our employees must respect and promote the human rights standards set out in our Principles of Social Responsibility and Human Rights. In a corporate context, these especially include freedom of assembly and association, prevention of child labour, free choice of employment, fair remuneration, compliance with and implementation of working time requirements, prevention of discrimination, equal opportunities and health and safety at the workplace.
To this end, we have developed a due diligence approach in the form of the Mercedes-Benz Human Rights Respect System.
This risk-based approach allows us to identify and avoid systemic risks and possible negative effects of our business activities on human rights at an early stage. In the event of potential and actual negative effects of our actions, we initiate the necessary countermeasures. The HRRS is applied both in our supply chains and in our companies in which we are the majority shareholder.
We monitor the human rights of our own employees internally via the Group-wide compliance management system. In addition, we apply specific guidelines and supplier compliance risk management in procurement to enforce compliance with human rights due diligence obligations by direct and indirect suppliers.
The HRRS comprises four steps:
In the first step, risks are systematically identified, assessed with the help of internationally recognised reference frameworks and legal requirements and prioritised accordingly. The risk assessment is carried out regularly as well as on an ad hoc basis.
Based on this, appropriate preventive measures are developed to prevent or minimise the identified risks. In the event of a violation of human rights-related obligations or an imminent violation, appropriate remedial measures will be developed and implemented.
The third step is the evaluation of the implementation and the effectiveness of the measures. Of course, we constantly adapt the system to new findings and challenges.
We continuously and transparently report on our progress and the challenges we face, for example in our Sustainability Report.
The Mercedes-Benz Group is continuously expanding the HRRS and is also involving external stakeholders and experts. This includes, for example, rights holders such as our employees and their representatives, the population at our sites and production sites, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
