Human Rights

Our Approach to Human Rights

As the reach and scale of renewable energy increase, integrating sustainability into everything we do is as essential as ever.  

In support of this, Vestas has committed to respecting human rights as set out in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the OECD Guiding Principles for Multinational Enterprises, the International Bill of Human Rights, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Fundamental Labour Conventions.  

Our approach to working with human rights is defined by our CSR blueprint. Our Human Rights Policy, Codes of Conduct, and Sustainability Strategy anchor our commitment. 

Our CSR blueprint consists of three pillars:

• Responsibility, strengthening human rights governance and management;   

• Inclusiveness, creating long-term value and engagement where we are present;

• Leadership, ensuring the integration of Human Rights in the energy transition.

Our CSR Blueprint reinforces the third pillar of our Sustainability Strategy: becoming the safest, most inclusive & socially responsible company in the energy industry. Respecting human rights is a fundamental part of achieving this goal.

Embedding Human Rights

Governance

Vestas’ Board of Directors, approves policies, procedures, and controls in key areas. This includes our Human Rights Policy, Employee and Supplier Codes of Conduct, and DEIB Policy. The Board or Management annually review these documents to confirm we have the right governance processes in place. Furthermore, the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors is responsible for sustainability due diligence and for overseeing compliance with our Code of Conduct. More information can be found in the Charter of the Audit Committee.

The Ethics Committees also provide oversight of ongoing human rights-related matters as part of their mandate to review EthicsLine cases and determine appropriate decisions and actions including remediation. The Group Ethics Committee is composed of the GSVP of Legal Risk & Compliance who is also the Chairman of the Committee, the Head of Group Finance, and the EVP of People & Culture. Each region has a similar setup for their Regional Ethics Committee.

Day-to-Day Responsibility

The Compliance & CSR department works to embed human rights management across the organisation. This includes the day-to-day responsibility of developing and updating the Human Rights Policy, Human Rights Due Diligence, and monitoring legal trends and expectations in the human rights landscape to embed them into our business.  

The implementation of Vestas’ policies and procedures, but also the integration of responses to salient human rights, is done in collaboration with different levels of stakeholders across the company. For example, with the sustainability department at a strategic level, with regional legal teams for the execution of regional compliance programs, with Sales and Construction teams at the wind farm project level, or with Sustainable Procurement for upstream management of salient human rights. In Sustainable Procurement, we have dedicated two specific social sustainability experts to our team as part of our commitment to implementing the 2022 HRA recommendations. This addition ensures improved oversight of human rights issues within our supply chain, further reinforcing our commitment to responsible practices.

Identifying & Assessing our Salient Human Rights Issues

Vestas aims to engage with external experts to conduct our corporate-wide Human Rights Assessment (HRA) as a minimum every three years. Conducting the assessments on a regular basis allows us to identify and assess emerging human rights risks and impacts, to integrate findings into business practices as the business evolves while also tracking and communicating progress. 

In 2018 we engaged external sustainability experts from BSR to conduct the first corporate-wide HRA, and in 2022 the assessment was updated to reflect changes in our operating model, geopolitical pressures, and stakeholder expectations. By working with external sustainability experts on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we have a clearer visibility of the issues at greatest risk of creating adverse impacts to rightsholders including vulnerable groups.  

Both HRAs utilized a similar methodology and mapped out relevant actual and potential human rights risks looking at how Vestas might impact rightsholders across our activities and value chain. The assessments consisted of desktop research, an analysis of internal management processes, and interviews. Since 2018, the assessment has evolved to include interviews with external stakeholders representing relevant rightsholder groups such as indigenous peoples and workers, besides Vestas’ senior management and internal subject matter experts. The 2022 assessment also included the two new areas of our business, namely Offshore and Development activities in addition to Supply Chain and Manufacturing, Construction, and Service.  In addition to our CW-HRA, Vestas conducts upstream and downstream due diligence which takes a more in-depth look at risks related to a country and location. See our below section on Preventing & Mitigating for more information.

The 2022 Human Rights Assessment (HRA) identified and prioritised Vestas’ salient human rights issues based on two sets of criteria: the severity of risk (scale, scope, remediability and likelihood) and relevance for business action (including attribution, leverage, risk history and current management). Each issue was assigned a priority level based on this combined assessment.

In 2025, Vestas revisited the salient human rights issues identified in the 2022 HRA through targeted internal discussions and engagement with relevant stakeholder, including selected external perspectives. This confirmed that the identified salient issues remain relevant, reflecting no significant changes in Vestas’ business activities or operating context. As a result, Vestas did not initiate a new corporate-wide human rights assessment. Instead, the Vestas will continue to prioritise the implementation and strengthening of recommendations from the 2022 HRA, with increased attention to selected priority areas.

The 2022 assessment recognises that risks may be particularly significant for vulnerable groups across three key rightsholder categories: Vestas’ own workforce, workers in the value chain, and affected communities. Vulnerable groups may include, among others, women and girls, children and young people, indigenous peoples, human rights defenders, migrant and temporary workers, and LGBTIQ+ individuals. These groups may face heightened exposure to human rights risks due to structural, economic or social exclusion.

The HRA confirmed that several priority areas remain consistent with previous assessments, including labour rights, occupational health and safety, community engagement, and land rights. Additional priority areas include operations in high-risk and conflict-affected areas, access to remedy, and risks related to human rights defenders.

 You can read more about our progress in our latest Annual Report.

Preventing & Mitigating

In line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Vestas adopts a full-value-chain approach to its human rights due diligence informed by our company-wide human rights assessments to identify gaps and address human rights issues.  

By taking a full-value chain approach to due diligence both downstream when we supply turbines and services to our customers and upstream when we engage with suppliers, we seek to identify, prevent and mitigate any potential or actual human rights impacts. At the same time, we aim to use our leverage in business relationships to contribute to appropriate action when possible. 

Downstream, we conduct social due diligence on high-risk projects to assess the potential human rights impacts associated with the construction and operation of wind farms. The assessment is based on project documents shared by our customers and site visits to validate data or collect additional data. Through these assessments, we identify any risks or adverse effects on local communities, workers, and other stakeholders and take appropriate measures together with our customers to mitigate them. 

We also recognize that our suppliers play a crucial role in respecting human rights, and therefore, we work closely with them to ensure that they uphold the same standards. This involves assessing their social and environmental management practices, including labour conditions, worker safety, and the prevention of forced labour and child labour. 

You can read more about our downstream (project-level) social due diligence and upstream (supply chain) due diligence below.  

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Vestas acknowledges that large-scale wind energy projects can potentially impact surrounding communities both positively and negatively. As a supplier to these projects, Vestas has a role to play in addressing any potential negative impacts on affected communities in collaboration with our customers and in furthering positive impacts as well.    

Vestas’ Social Due Diligence (SDD) is tailored to the wind industry, implemented globally, and is today an integral part of Vestas’ Sales gate process. The scope and level of the SDD are determined through a risk‑based prioritisation process, ensuring that due diligence efforts are proportional to potential social risks and impacts, and level of influence.

The potential for Vestas to cause or contribute to adverse social impacts on local communities varies depending on the Scope of Work (SoW) and our level of on-site presence. Projects with greater physical presence and construction activities involve increased interaction with communities and therefore carry higher social risk.

Vestas’ SoW is categorised into three main contract types with differing social impacts and risks:

  1. Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) projects involve activities such as establishing site camps, constructing access roads, preparing foundations and lay‑down areas, and erecting wind turbines. These activities can lead to temporary social impact including effects on community health and safety (e.g. dust, heavy traffic, influx of workers) as well as restrictions on land use during construction. As a result, they often require increased interaction with local communities. Vestas, together with our Customer, acts as a point of contact for these communities supporting engagement and addressing concerns.

  2. Supply & Installation (S&I) projects carry a moderate level of social risk. As Vestas’ involvement begins once access roads and foundations have been completed by the developer, our on-site presence and duration of activities are more limited. This reduces the extent of potential impacts on local communities and the level of community interaction compared to EPC projects. 

  3. Supply Only contracts represent a minimal level of social risk, as Vestas’ role is limited to manufacturing and transporting wind turbines from the factory to the port of departure. With no on-site presence, there is no direct interaction with local communities and therefore negligible potential to cause or contribute to adverse social impacts.

One of the targets in the people pillar of our Sustainability Strategy is to ensure that 100% of all projects within scope undergo social due diligence. You can read more about our Social Due Diligence Tool in our Social Management System or in our latest Annual Report.

Vestas prioritizes stringent supplier standards through a comprehensive upstream due diligence process. This includes thorough pre-screening, self-assessment questionnaires, on-site and desktop evaluations, and ongoing performance monitoring.  

In order to establish direct collaboration with suppliers and oversee due diligence processes, Vestas has integrated a dedicated Sustainable Procurement team in its Global Procurement function. This team's key priorities revolve around initiatives, processes, and policies that aim upholding the company's standards for sustainable and ethical business practices within the upstream supply chain. These priorities serve as guiding principles for Regional Procurement Officers, shaping their actions and decisions throughout the supplier onboarding qualification process, self-assessments, and on-site and desktop assessments.  

By incorporating sustainability requirements into our onboarding and auditing procedures, we contribute to the development of a sustainable and resilient supply base that is attuned to local needs and conditions. In addition, we aim to foster strong partnerships with our suppliers on certain sustainability matters. As part of our commitment to implementing the 2022 Human Rights Assessment recommendations, we have dedicated two specific social sustainability experts in our team. 

Through this comprehensive upstream due diligence process, we ensure that our suppliers follow the high standards set forth in the Supplier Code of Conduct.  

To learn more about Supplier Sustainability at Vestas, please visit our Supplier Sustainability page.  

Tracking & Communicating

As part of our commitment to respecting human rights, we track and communicate our progress on our salient human rights issues through different indicators. To ensure cross-functional progress on our human rights performance internally, we have established a steering committee with members from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), People and Culture (P&C), Sustainable Procurement, and Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) to work on implementing the recommendations of our Corporate-Wide Human Rights Assessment.

Communication on our approach, progress, and setbacks on human rights is an essential part of our ongoing human rights due diligence process. We track our human rights performance across several indicators in our sustainability-key figures, in our annual financial report that includes our sustainability statement and our overall progress on the implementation of our human rights assessment recommendations.

While our external communication and tracking are evolving and we aim to achieve a more systematic way of tracking our progress across all our salient human rights, we have achieved progress in reporting on community-related human rights issues, occupational health & safety, grievances, and supplier performance monitoring.  

Read more about how we engage and communicate with human rights internally and externally below. 

Reports & Ratings

Vestas tracks its performance against several salient human rights issues including occupational health and safety, community-related salient human rights, and access to remedy in relation to our different rightsholder groups. 

For our own employees' occupational health and safety, our sustainability report and annual report include several safety KPIs including the Total Recordable Injuries (including Lost Time Injuries and fatal injuries), Total Recordable Injuries per million working hours, and Lost Time Injuries per million working hours.

To report on access to grievance, we publish the number of EthicsLine cases yearly and the number of community grievances received. While EthicsLine is publicly available for all stakeholders, our whistle-blower platform is primarily used by our own workforce and is thus our employees' main tool for communicating grievances related to our Code of Conduct or violations to policies or laws. Community grievances in turn, refer to the grievances that have been raised by affected communities on Vestas operated sites through the operational grievance mechanism.  

Our progress in de-risking impacts to communities is also tracked through the percentage of projects in scope that have undergone the Social Due Diligence Projects assessment and the number of community beneficiaries we reach on a yearly basis. We have a target of conducting our social due diligence assessments in 100% of our in-scope projects by 2025. Our other community-related target was to reach 35,000 community beneficiaries through our community engagement initiatives by 2025. In 2022, we reached that goal in anticipation, reaching more than 36,000 people through our community engagement activities.  

Besides our sustainability key figures, we also report on the progress on the implementation of the recommendations of our human rights assessment. For our most recent status update you can read our latest Sustainability Report.

Externally, we communicate on our progress on human rights in our sustainability reports, annual reports, website, and UN Global Compact’s yearly Communication on Progress (CoP). We also share activities related to human rights on social media posts and blogs on our website.  Customer engagement is another important means of communicating our human rights approach and exploring joined ways forward to address potential adverse human rights impacts in our industry.

Internal communication is also essential for managing human rights proactively. Training and awareness initiatives are important tools to ensure that our human rights approach is understood by our employees, and that they are aware of our internal policies and commitments to help integrate human rights in the organization. For the past years, we have been running different human rights related awareness and training initiatives including a mandatory company-wide micro-learning about our sustainability strategy, including practical examples of some of our salient human rights issues, and a mandatory micro-learning about discrimination & harassment. We have also conducted webinars about modern slavery and our human rights approach done in collaboration with a customer, as well as yearly intranet articles on International Human Rights Day.  

Grievance & Remediation

Vestas is committed to remedying actual adverse impacts on any individual or group we may have caused or contributed to.

At the same time, we also expect our suppliers to have appropriate grievance mechanisms proportionate to their size, complexity and to the risk of their business environment. In parallel, our suppliers are also expected to remedy any adverse impacts on individuals, workers and communities that they may have caused or contributed to.  Suppliers and their employees are also encouraged to use our global whistleblower system, EthicsLine, to make a report if they suspect misconduct linked to Vestas.

In cases where we may be linked to adverse impacts for example through third parties including suppliers, we seek to use our leverage to ensure that any impacted stakeholder is remediated.  For this purpose, Vestas has in place an Operational-level Grievance Mechanism (OGM) used during the construction of our wind farm projects and EthicsLine, our whistle-blower hotline which is publicly available and accessible.    Vestas furthermore commits to collaborate with judicial or non-judicial mechanisms such as national courts, Ombuds Institutions, OECD National Contact Points, national human rights institutions as mean to provide access to remedy. 

The Operational Grievance Mechanism (OGM) applies globally and has been developed to meet the expectations outlined in international standards and principles such as the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and IFC’s Environmental and Social Performance Standards. The OGM is available in English and in local languages, without obstructing access to other remedies. 

Our OGM is open to all external stakeholders that may have a concern or complaint related to a project. Any complainant, be it a group or an individual, can raise a concern or a grievance related to human rights issues e.g., community health & safety, cultural heritage & customs, misalignment on benefits, security guards, and land compensation. We investigate these concerns according to our procedures and determine remediation actions in collaboration with the complainants when necessary.

Our approach to remediation varies from case to case but it could for example consist of an apology, replacement of damaged material, allocation of new land, or compensation for loss of livelihood. An example of remedy provision took place in one of our projects in Jordan in 2020. Local farmers experienced negative impacts in their livelihoods due to the dust emissions from heavy transportation. The dust covered livestock grazing areas and olive trees, resulting in reduced income. To address this issue, we hired an independent consultant that conducted a rigorous impact assessment and calculated a fair level of compensation. The complainants were compensated for their loss of income. After this case, we implemented changes in the training of our transport suppliers to raise awareness about dust-related impacts on people and how we expect them to mitigate it through e.g., speed limits on site and covering trucks.

Vestas reports on the number of community grievances received in our Annual Report. Every year we receive a number of grievances, which we interpret as a positive signal that our operational-level grievance mechanism is being used. We will continue to revise and improve our grievance mechanism so that local communities have the opportunity to raise issues with us as soon as they arise.  

More information about the OGM process can be found in our Social Management System which describes our social framework.  

Vestas is committed to providing a safe environment for our employees and partners to speak up if they witness misconduct. 

In addition to our Operational-level Grievance Mechanism, Vestas has EthicsLine, a global whistle-blower platform which can be used to report observed or suspected misconduct. EthicsLine allows our employees and partners to report violations of the Vestas Code of Conduct, applicable laws, and Vestas's policies. Since 2007, EthicsLine has helped ensure that such violations are always brought forward and dealt with appropriately.  

We report on the number of complaints and questions received through EthicsLine  on our annual financial statement and sustainability report. Findings of previous EthicsLine and community grievance cases are used for training material for internal learning.  

EthicsLine is accessible publicly here. 

Promoting human rights in the energy transition

As the aspiring world leader in sustainable energy solutions, Vestas is working to accelerate the renewable industry’s human rights performance through fostering partnerships. If the energy transition is to be truly responsible and inclusive, we need to adopt a cross-stakeholder, collaborative approach to respecting business-related human rights. Human rights are transitioning from soft law to hard law and financial institutions are firming up their demands. Vestas and its partners will have to approach these changes together.

To this end, Vestas continuously seeks to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on business and human rights by building and using leverage, participating in public statements and sharing our experiences in panels, networks, and documents. As a recent example, in 2026 Vestas contributed to the study “The Hidden Bill of Green Conflict: Derisking Renewable Energy by Strengthening Community Trust” through participation in stakeholder interviews contributing insights on community engagement and social risk management in renewable energy projects

 

In 2023 we contributed with a case study on our full value chain approach to due diligence to a new publication on Due Diligence in the Downstream Value Chain by the Danish Institute of Human Rights. We also form part of many different networks e.g., the Nordic Business Network for Human Rights, the local UN Global Compact network on Human Rights, are a part of the Dutch International Responsible Business Conduct Agreement for the Renewable Energy Sector (which includes a Renewable Energy Complaints and Disputes Committee), as well as the Wind Energy Initiative with other key industry players. 

  • Human Rights Policy
    • This policy outlines Vestas' commitment to respecting human rights and addressing adverse human rights impacts, when applicable
  • Social Management System
    • An outline of our human rights methodology in our market approach, supporting customers in creating bankable projects
       
  • Lake Turkana Impact Study
    • A socio-economic study of the key impacts from Lake Turkana Wind Power project in Kenya
  • Supporting EU level mandatory human rights legislation
    • 90+ large companies, SMEs and networks including Vestas reaffirmed their support in a joint statement for the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive ahead of next its final European Parliament vote in 2024.
    • In  2021, together with 11 other companies, Vestas released a statement supporting mandatory due diligence legislation in the EU.