We respect human rights

Human rights belong to everyone, and we do not tolerate human rights violations in any form. The human rights of our personnel, customers, suppliers, and all other stakeholders must be respected. We recognise our ability to contribute to positive human rights impacts and are committed to avoid any adverse human rights impacts and to address and mitigate such impacts should they occur.  

Metsä Group respects internationally recognised human rights, as declared in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ILO Labour Standards. We are also committed to acting in compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and expect our business partners to do the same. We are committed to ensuring that slavery, including child labour, forced labour, human trafficking or any other form of modern slavery, is not taking place in our own business or in our supply chain. 

We continuously develop our operations and processes further to prevent more efficiently any adverse impacts on human rights resulting from our operations. See more from our Code of Conduct and Supplier Code of Conduct. 

Human rights in our own operations and in our supply chain 

We have conducted a human rights impact assessment to deepen our understanding of the actual and potential human rights impacts resulting from our operations. Examples of how human rights are visible in our own operations or in our supply chain include health and safety, fair employment practices, elimination of discrimination and harassment, prohibition of child and forced labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining and privacy and personal data protection.  

Our hygiene products and fresh fibre food contact products are examples of our positive contribution to the development of hygiene and food safety which link to the fundamental right to good health. 

We want to ensure that our suppliers operate in accordance with our human rights commitment.  We require all of our suppliers to commit to the Metsä Group Supplier Code of Conduct that covers key requirements regarding human rights and have many methods to verify that all suppliers comply with them. These practices include risk analysis and background checks, supplier assessments and audits. These tools have been integrated to our procurement processes. Read more here. 

Our sustainability objectives for 2030 support the development of human rights, in particular accident free work environment, responsible corporate culture and sustainable supply chain.

How can our personnel and other stakeholders raise concerns regarding human rights?  

We want to encourage our personnel and stakeholders to ask questions and raise concerns related to human rights. Metsä Group Compliance and Ethics Channel provides an opportunity to report suspected human rights violations. Every concern and misconduct reported in good faith will be investigated and necessary actions taken, including remediation of any harm. Metsä Group is committed to protect the rights and privacy of anyone raising a concern in good faith and do not tolerate any form of retaliation.