Human Rights
Fortescue is committed to respecting and supporting the human rights of all people, including our employees, the communities in which we operate, workers within our supply chain and those who may be impacted by our activities.
Material Topic Information
Why it matters
The mining sector and activities related to the global energy transition both have the potential to positively and negatively impact the human rights of workers, communities and other rights holders across their value chains.
Ambition
Our sustainability approach is founded in a respect for human rights. We work to embed our Human Rights Policy and continuously improve our approach to respecting human rights across our business.
Contributing to SDG's
Salient Human Rights Issues
Materiality
Human Rights at Fortescue
Fortescue is committed to respecting and supporting human rights across our operations, supply chains, and the communities in which we operate. We respect the International Bill of Human Rights and the rights set out in the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. Our approach reflects global standards for ethical business practices, including the guidance of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Our Human Rights Policy serves as the foundation for this commitment, helping us to integrate human rights considerations into decision-making processes and operational activities.
Key elements of our approach
Human rights intersect with every aspect of our business, influencing the way we approach labour practices, community engagement, cultural heritage preservation, and environmental stewardship. We recognise that our activities and those of our suppliers have the potential to cause, contribute to, or be directly linked to adverse human rights impacts. At the same time, we see opportunities to drive positive change by fostering inclusive workplaces, enhancing community well-being, and collaborating with stakeholders to address human rights risks proactively.
FY25 Highlights
In FY25, Fortescue undertook significant initiatives to advance our human rights commitments. We launched our internal Human Rights Framework and Standard, providing guidance on governance, due diligence, and monitoring. Our saliency assessment was refreshed. Fortescue also strengthened supplier engagement through the Sustainable Supply Chain Standard, which outlines expectations for ethical practices and human rights compliance.
Collaboration remained a key focus, with Fortescue co-chairing the Human Rights and Resource Energy Collaborative and hosting discussions with industry members and the Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner to address modern slavery risks. These efforts demonstrate our commitment to driving meaningful change across our operations and supply chains.
Fortescue continues our work to implement the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR), with our first Annual VPI Report in the Document Library.
Our FY24 Modern Slavery Statement was released in December 2024 and is available from the Document Library. Our FY25 Modern Slavery Statement will be published in December 2025.
Human Rights and Modern Slavery Incidents and Grievances
We did not identify any confirmed incidents of modern slavery in our operations or supply in FY25. However, we continue to conduct worker welfare assessments in our supply chain and identify labour rights issues including, for example, overtime beyond legal limits, penalties and wage deductions, health and safety issues.
In FY25, no concerns were raised through the Speak Up platform or community grievance mechanisms that were categorised to be primarily relevant to human rights and/or modern slavery.
In FY25, one security and human rights-related incident was recorded. In October 2024, a security incident occurred in connection with Ivindo Iron’s Belinga Project in Gabon, which is currently in an exploration phase. A group of local demonstrators, calling for prioritisation of local jobs, had blocked an access road to Makokou Airport, preventing Ivindo personnel from accessing chartered flights. Local public security forces attended and dispersed the demonstrators.
The incident was reported and investigated in accordance with our Incident Event Management Procedure. To address the concerns raised by the demonstrators, and improve communications between Ivindo Iron and the community, Ivindo Iron hosted a town hall meeting in Makokou to share information about the progress of the project, local employment, community engagement and local economic contributions. Ivindo Iron’s community grievance mechanism is under review and scheduled for completion in FY26.
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Training
Human rights training modules were updated to incorporate new requirements, enhancing employee awareness and understanding, and targeted training was delivered to key internal stakeholders.
As of 30 June 2025, 11,449 active Fortescue employees have completed human rights training within the past two years, representing 72 per cent of employees. Completion of this training ensures a basic level of understanding of human rights and modern slavery, along with an understanding of Fortescue's approach, key processes and key human rights contacts.
11,449
71.5%
FY25 Performance
A full breakdown of our FY25 Human Rights data is provided in our FY25 ESG Databook located in our Document Library.
Impacts, dependencies, risks and opportunities
Fortescue’s operations and supply chains intersect deeply with human rights, creating both challenges and opportunities. By addressing risks such as modern slavery and labour rights violations, while fostering collaboration and ethical practices, we strive to deliver positive outcomes for rightsholders.
Our Human Rights Strategy
Fortescue’s Human Rights Strategy is built on governance, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Our Human Rights Policy outlines our commitment to respecting human rights.
Our strategy emphasises integrating human rights considerations into core business functions, including procurement, community engagement, and security practices. Our periodic saliency assessments identify and prioritise human rights issues across our operations and supply chains, helping to focus our actions and approach. By engaging stakeholders and collaborating with external networks, we aim to continuously improve our approach and deliver responsible outcomes for all rightsholders.
A Closer Look
Managing Human Rights
Fortescue’s approach to human rights management integrates governance, risk assessment, stakeholder engagement, and reporting to identify and address actual and potential impacts and deliver sustainable outcomes. By embedding human rights considerations across our business functions, we aim to respect rightsholders, mitigate risks, and foster positive change within our operations, supply chains, and communities.
Governance
The Safety and Sustainability Committee is responsible for overseeing all matters relating to management of human rights, on behalf of the Board. Operational management of Fortescue’s human rights approach is led by our Director of Global Sustainability and External Affairs, and implemented by our Sustainability team. Delivering our human rights commitments requires a multi-functional approach. Sustainability, Contracts and Procurement (including Sustainable Supply Chain), Communities, Security, Governance and Compliance teams across the business all work together to help embed and implement our human rights approach.
The Human Rights Steering Group supports multi-functional collaboration and meets quarterly. The Group includes members from key business functions, including, Contracts and Procurement, Communities, First Nations, Health and Safety, Legal, Security, Governance and Compliance, Risk and Assurance, People, and Fortescue Zero.
Policies and Standards
Fortescue is committed to respecting and supporting the human rights of all people, including our employees, the communities in which we operate, workers within our supply chain and those who may be impacted by our activities.
Our Code of Conduct and Integrity and Human Rights Policy are our foundational documents for respecting human rights.
We actively communicate our human rights commitment to our stakeholders through mandatory human rights training for employees and contractors, clear expectations provided to our suppliers as outlined our Sustainable Supply Chain Standard and Supplier Foundational Human Rights Information Pack, and publication of our human rights approach and Human Rights Policy on our website.
Read our key documents in the Document Library.
- Human Rights Policy
- Code of Conduct and Integrity
- Sustainable Supply Chain Standard
- Supplier Foundations Human Rights Information Pack
Our Processes and Procedures
Fortescue identifies and assesses potential human rights risk via our company-wide Risk Management Framework. This is supported by the minimum standard of human rights due diligence across a range of key business activities set out in the Human Rights Standard. Human rights risks are captured in our corporate risk register, together with mitigation and action items assigned to responsible roles and functions.
We adopt a collaborative approach for managing human rights. A key example of this is the Human Rights and Resource Energy Collaborative (HRREC). Fortescue is currently co-chair of HRREC, a self-led industry collaboration which provides a forum for resources and energy sectors to share knowledge, learnings, challenges and best practices approach. In FY25, Fortescue hosted a quarterly membership meeting, presented a knowledge share on our worker welfare assessment program and hosted a round table discussion with HRREC members and the inaugural Australian Anti-Slavery Commissioner on addressing modern slavery issues in our sector.
Measuring Performance
The effectiveness of Fortescue's management of human rights is measured through various metrics and performance outcomes, including:
- Human rights training – promoting awareness and understanding of our commitments and approach to respecting human rights
- Grievances – monitoring use and assessing effectiveness of our grievance mechanisms, evaluating the number and types of concerns being raised to identity trends, effectiveness of outcomes, and identifying lessons learnt to continuously improve our approach.
- Human rights incidents – monitoring the number and type of human rights incidents, evaluating our approach to investigation and effective remediation, identifying gaps in our approach, lessons learnt and implementing actions to improve our approach.
The outcomes are used to inform our processes where required.
Compliance
Compliance with all relevant legislation and obligations is the absolute minimum standard to which we operate. Fortescue operates in accordance with the requirements of the following key legislation at our significant locations of operation:
Australian Modern Slavery Act 2018
United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Reporting
Fortescue publishes an annual modern slavery statement outlining the risks in our operations and supply chains, and actions address these in compliance with the Australian and United Kingdom Modern Slavery legislation.
As part of our membership of the VPSHR, Fortescue publishes an Annual VPSHR Report on our implementation of the VPSHR prepared to meet the requirements of the reporting guidelines for corporate pillar members.
We disclose our human rights data in accordance with GRI 2: General Disclosures 2021, and relevant sections of GRI 3: Material Topics 2021.
Our FY24 Modern Slavery Statement is available from our Document Library and our FY25 Modern Slavery Statement will be published in December 2025 and available from our website.
Our Actions
Salient Human Rights Issues
Modern Slavery
Grievance and Remediation
Training
Additional Resources
Related Topics
Digital Library
Date
Title
Category
Download document(1.14 kb)
Code of Conduct and Integrity Policy 2025
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FY25 Supplier Foundations Human Rights Information Pack
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Sustainable Supply Chain Standard 2025
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