Introduction
Since 2004, Technip Energies Italy is certified with the SA8000 Standard to manifest the commitment to basic human values in the workplace.
The SA8000 Standard is the world’s leading social certification program, allowing companies to demonstrate their dedication to fair treatment of workers. The certification is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions. It also respects, complements, and supports national labor laws around the world, and currently helps secure ethical working conditions worldwide.
The Standard consists of several elements with focus on the protection of human rights, such as health and safety, remuneration, working hours, freedom of association and prohibition of child labor, forced or compulsory labor and any type of discrimination in the organization up to its supply chain.
These elements are also aligned with the Worker Welfare Principles that are developed by the industry‐led initiative Building Responsibly. The initiative, that we joined in 2019, strives to enable construction and engineering companies to collaborate and agree on common approaches regarding worker welfare and human rights.
Challenge
Technip Energies operates mega-projects in challenging environments where high management system standards are expected to keep us from compromising with our foundational beliefs and mitigate risks.
The SA8000 certification brings positive business impacts to all our stakeholders in several ways:
- Better relationships between workers, customers and external stakeholders
- More effective management systems that improve workflows throughout the organization, resulting in:
- Improved quality and productivity;
- Better hazard and risk detection;
- Increased supply chain control;
- Higher employee retention;
- Enhanced reputation, appeal to global buyers, and preferential status in government tenders.
The certification also benefits our employees, suppliers and subcontractors by ensuring them:
- Safe workplaces and healthy working conditions;
- A living wage;
- Increased awareness of rights via live training session to all employees;
- Increased opportunities to organize channels to address any suggestion or concern;
- Better relationships with management and more input in workplace decision-making.
Solutions
In order to succeed, Technip Energies Italy has embedded the SA8000 requirements into its whole project management process. One important part is the strong management system composed of various documents, such as:
- Technip Energies Italy Code of Ethics;
- Child Labour Policy;
- CSR Site Procedure;
- SA 8000: 2014 questionnaire with standard requirements for subcontractors and suppliers’ to answer in the pre-qualification phase.
Another success factor has been to involve important internal stakeholders like the general management, the sustainability manager and the social performance team, who represents the employees. They have been great ambassadors cooperating to raise the bar on social accountability topics.
This management system is applied to all projects. The process starts with a pre-qualification questionnaire based on SA8000 requirements. Once the supplier or subcontractor is selected, the purchase order will be issued with special clauses related to the respect of the SA8000 Standard principles.
During the construction phase, Technip Energies Italy audits the supply chain on site and accompanies the subcontractors to improve their human rights performance where it is necessary.
In order to retain the certification, Technip Energies Italy is audited on a quarterly basis by an external and independent third party approved by SAI. As a result, they get a report in return assuring that the company is working in compliance with the Standard requirements and addressing possible opportunities of improvement.
Results
Since 2004, the SA8000 Standard has been applied to all the projects that Technip Energies Italy has been involved in, for example Etileno XXI in Mexico, Bapco Modernization Project in Bahrain, Azerikimya Socar Project in Azerbaijan.
At the moment it is applied on major projects such as the Midor refinery expansion project in Egypt, the Assiut refinery project in Egypt and the Neste Singapore expansion project.
In practice, it can work like in the Neste expansion project in Singapore. There, Neste has delegated to Technip Energies Italy to be in charge of the supply chain monitoring program in order to assure that activities performed by subcontractors are in compliance with local labour law, SA8000:2014 requirements and Building Responsibly Worker Welfare Principles.