Human rights
As a global company, Ramboll can potentially cause, contribute to, or be linked to adverse human rights impacts, including through our business relations. Conscious of these potential impacts, we work to ensure that human rights are respected both within our organisation and our supply chain, and when working on our clients’ projects.
Our commitment to human rights
- Safe and healthy working conditions: Ramboll may have an adverse impact through overwork or stressful work, in case of bullying, or otherwise unhealthy conditions at work, by not ensuring ergonomically adapted workplaces, and by not ensuring safety equipment and training is used when visiting project sites.
- Rest, leisure, and paid holidays: Ramboll recognises that the professional services sector is impacted by challenges such as overwork and stressful work, which can also impact us. We seek to track overtime through our time-registration system, especially with regard to project work. In addition, we have various local initiatives to prevent or mitigate impacts in this area, including informing employees of vacation availability, seeking to ensure a work week follows the local standards.
- Adequate housing: Ramboll provides building- and architecture services and considers it a strategic aim to contribute to livable and resilient societies. We thus assess that we may have severe impacts on the right to adequate housing if we in our services neglect to consider accessibility, acceptability, availability, and the quality of buildings that we contribute to the establishment of (e.g., through design decisions). The quality of our services determines our success as a company working with buildings and architecture, which is why we have a significant focus in our services on building high-quality buildings that matches the expectations and needs of inhabitants and intended users of such buildings.
- Freedom of information: Ramboll is a knowledge-heavy institution. The quality of our services depends on the quality of the information we have access to, and our ability to utilise and manage knowledge within the company and in projects. Ramboll’s services and solutions contribute to society’s transition to a more sustainable future. To stay competitive in enabling the sustainable transition, we are highly dependent on our in-house knowledge and ability to access and share information. We can have adverse impacts on this right by not ensuring employees have access to the information they need to perform their job duties, by not enabling effective and easy knowledge sharing across departments, or by not ensuring the quality of information for the services or projects we deliver. We ensure effective information flows and knowledge-sharing on our internal communication platforms, including our global communication channels where employees can connect and collaborate. We also host monthly all- employee ‘brown-bag-sessions’ where colleagues across the company share insights from their work and good practices to inspire each other across the company. There are other offerings such as the Young-Professionals network, allowing employees to engage with peers on issues that are particularly relevant to them.
- Health: We may have impacts on the right to health through design decisions, e.g. materials used or decided in building designs, or using chemicals or other materials that negatively impact the health of users of our designs. Product designers working with Ramboll need to focus on sustainable designs, which include healthy and non-toxic design. We ensure that all employees have access to a database of which materials to use and stay updated on new developments on toxins and chemicals of materials. We have specific training for employees on this topic and ensure that we have highly educated engineers in our company who are responsible for the quality of our products.
- Not to be subjected to discrimination, degrading treatment or punishment: Ramboll may have an adverse impact on harassment or bullying since it could occur in the office or in engagements with business relationships. This includes sexual harassment and other types of harassment, that also relate to discrimination. Ramboll has a strong emphasis on creating and enforcing a healthy and positive working environment. Employee wellbeing is assessed through an annual employee satisfaction and engagement survey. A dedicated Equality Diversity & Inclusion team is running programmes to ensure an equal, diverse, and inclusive workplace. We also offer EDI training for all employees.