TE CONNECTIVITY - DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES ON HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE GERMAN OPERATING LEGAL ENTITIES OF THE TE CONNECTIVITY GROUP IN GERMANY (GRUNDSATZERKLÄRUNG)

We at TE Connectivity (TE) are aware of our responsibility as an internationally operating enterprise. We believe that business can only flourish in societies where human rights are protected and recognized, and we know that we must conduct our business activities in harmony with people and nature; this is the only way forward to continue our successful and growing enterprise and to make progress towards a sustainable future. However, we do not just pay lip service to these commitments- We take the protection of human rights seriously and we seek to actively prevent any violations thereof. The importance of human rights is continuously growing for our employees, suppliers, investors, customers as well as all stakeholders along our supply chain. It is therefore both an economic and a moral mandate to ensure compliance with human rights in our operations and our supply chain.

We therefore declare this commitment for our own business operations as well as for our supply chain.

Our Human Rights principles

International Standards

We at TE commit to human rights as laid out in particular in the following documents:

• The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
• The United Nations International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights
• The United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
• The United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
• The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions and Recommendations on labour and social standards
• The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy
• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

We are committed to considering all internationally recognized human rights as relevant to our activities. Our principle is as follows: where national law and international human rights standards differ, we follow the higher standard; where they conflict, we follow national law while seeking ways to recognize international human rights to the fullest extent possible.

International Goals

In addition, we support the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and through our actions we aim to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

We have also been a signatory of the UN Global Compact since 2011. By joining this initiative, we have committed to implementing the ten principles of the UN Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption as part of our corporate strategies and day-to-day operations.

Our TE Guidelines and Policies

Based on these international standards and our regular annual enterprise risk management and specific human rights risk assessment, we developed the following rules for every stakeholder of our enterprise:

• Our Global Human Rights Policy, as published in the TE supplier portal, setting forth our general human rights strategy and overall approach;
• Our Guide to Ethical Conduct outlining our expectations to our employees and our business partners;
• Our global Environmental, Health and Safety Policy outlining our standards to protect our employees and the environment;
• Our general procurement processes including assessment of human rights, social and environmental aspects in the selection of suppliers, our process for onboarding and qualification of new suppliers, general procurement contracts, and general purchasing conditions, each comprising contractual commitments to our human rights and environmental standards by suppliers and addressing these accordingly in their own supply chains,
• Our Supplier Social Responsibility (SSR) Program, including the Supplier Guide to Social Responsibility outlining the expectations we have to our suppliers on labor and human rights, health and safely, environmental concerns, ethics, and responsible business practices, which among other includes commitment to trainings and allows us to audit suppliers to verify their adherence to our SSR Program;
• Our Supplier Requirements for Product Environmental Compliance specifying banned substances, restricted substances and substances of concern to limit the use of substances that are hazardous to health or the environment;
• Our Statement on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy outlining our position on human trafficking in some more detail;
• Our Policy on Reporting and Investigating Misconduct.

These aforementioned policies, guidelines and directives form a binding framework for action for all our employees and business partners (including suppliers) and define specific measures and goals. Please visit also www.te.com/responsibility for further information.

Implementation at TE Connectivity

Our policies and guidelines are implemented throughout our entire global business operations across all of our business units by the relevant stakeholders, including global and local management as well as corporate support and business operations functions such as Global Procurement, business unit Procurement, Environmental, Health & Safely (EHS), Legal, Compliance, HR, Operations, and other. We have further appointed a Human Rights Officer, whose responsibilities include monitoring our entire risk management.

Among other, this includes the following steps:

Risk Assessment

We continuously assess whether there are particular human rights or environmental risks in our supply chains on an annual basis, supplemented by ad-hoc assessment if needed. The goal of our risk assessment is to identify salient human rights issues as well as environmental matters at risk of the most severe negative impact through the company’s activities or business relationships, allowing the company to focus its resources on finding information that is necessary for its own ability to manage risks to human rights and environmental matters.

The assessment includes interviewing and researching employees, shareholders, investors, governments, customers, media, and civil society organizations to understand the impact of our operations and supply chain. We use the UN Guiding Principles Reporting Framework’s (UNGPRF) as a starting point, while recognizing that where risks to human rights are greatest, there is strong convergence with risk to the business.

Wherever we have factual indications that suggest a possible violation of a human right or an environmental obligation at indirect suppliers we will conduct a risk analysis as of this supplier as set out above and establish appropriate prevention and remediation measures as set out above.

Prevention of violations

Our commitment does not end with a mere risk analysis. We continuously implement and improve measures to prevent and mitigate adverse human rights-related impacts and risks that we have identified and prioritized. These include, among others, aligning our management structures and purchasing practices with our goals. Also, we train employees and suppliers to raise their awareness of human rights issues, and we conduct audits. Further, we engage in industry-wide action alliances and multi-stakeholder initiatives to work together to find solutions, including instances where our ability to influence prevention and mitigation might be limited. A more detailed description of our due diligence and training approach can be found in our Global Human Rights Policy.

Grievance Mechanisms

We recognize the need to access to grievance mechanisms, as set out in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Grievance mechanisms are an appropriate means to identify adverse impacts and risks. Therefore, we have established appropriate grievance mechanisms that enable all employees, suppliers, investors, customers as well as all stakeholders along our supply chain to report or discuss a possible violation of a human right matter. A detailed description of related measures can be found in our Global Human Rights Policy and Policy on Reporting and Investigating Misconduct.

Remediation Measures

We expect all our employees and business partners to comply with applicable laws and human rights conventions. Violations will not be tolerated and will be consistently pursued. We take all incidents and allegations seriously, regardless of which of our stakeholders raises them. We strive to take remediation measures in line with international standards. For example, we work closely with our business partners to take remedial action against adverse impacts that are directly related to our processes and products. We are committed to ensuring that access to governmental, judicial and non-judicial mechanisms are not prevented.

Review and Improvement

We know that standards to human rights as well as compliance to it may continue to rise and we welcome such development. Therefore, we review the effectiveness of our measures to prevent human rights or environmental issues in our business operations or our supply chains on an annual basis. This includes – among others -  surveys and interviews with around two hundred senior business and function leaders across the company. Our goal is, besides identifying risks facing each of the individual businesses and corporate functions, or enterprises risks that affect multiple components of our businesses, also to find principal and material risks that need leadership oversight and action, in order to continuously review and improve our methods and measures.

Final Provisions

TEs’ Management is responsible for compliance with and implementation of this Declaration of Principles.

If this Declaration of Principle is to be translated into foreign languages, the English version shall prevail.

We are aware that the implementation of human rights due diligence is an ongoing process. Therefore, we will continuously review and amend this Declaration of Principles from time to time if deemed necessary.

We track and report publicly on this progress on an annual basis as well as we are committed to fulfil our documentation and reporting obligations to the competent supervisory authority and according to its standards.