ING publishes fifth human rights report
Today ING has released its 2023 human rights report. It primarily focuses on reassessing the most severe human rights issues (saliencies) identified earlier with regards to our own workforce and our Wholesale Banking business. It also includes a new assessment for our role as a procurer of services and goods.
We also provide an update on our ongoing efforts to address the identified salient human rights issues in our retail banking activities (first disclosed in the 2022 human rights review).
“Every person is entitled to basic human rights, no matter who they are and where they come from. As a global bank we have a role to play in respecting human rights in our interactions with our customers, employees, stakeholders and society at large” says Anne-Sophie Castelnau, ING global head of Sustainability.
This is ING’s fifth publication dedicated to the topic of human rights. We may affect human rights in our role as an employer, a procurer of goods and services, a corporate lender with the potential to influence the business practices of our clients, and a provider of financial services to individuals. It’s important to understand the potential human rights impacts that we may cause, contribute to or be linked to in the different roles we have and how we are managing and mitigating those impacts. In our report we aim to identify and assess these impacts through a methodology involving three steps – identification, prioritisation, engagement. This methodology is based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and is central for the identification of the salient human rights issues presented in the report.
The outcomes of our assessment and the identification of ING salient human rights issues in our four operating roles are:
Looking ahead we aim to continue developing and improving our own processes to identify, manage and mitigate potential human rights impacts we may cause, contribute to or be linked to as a bank.