Qualcomm's Respect for Human Rights
As published in Qualcomm's 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report
We are committed to promoting and respecting all internationally recognized human rights and avoiding complicity in any human rights abuse throughout our Company, our operations and our business relationships, including our subsidiaries, partners, customers and supply chain.
Our efforts are informed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the eight Core Labor Standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Principles and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Our Company’s respect for human rights is enshrined in The Qualcomm Way: Our Code of Business Conduct and our Supplier Code of Conduct. Our approach is explained in further detail in our Human Rights Statement.
We require all employees to complete training and certification on The Qualcomm Way: Our Code of Business Conduct, including the subsection on human rights.
As part of our human rights due diligence efforts, we regularly conduct formal, third-party human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) of our operations as a whole or at the market level. These assess potential risks across our operations and/or value chain, including risks related to employees, manufacturing facilities, supply chain and communities. HRIAs help us identify our salient human rights issues — those human rights at potential risk of negative impact due to our Company activities or business relationships.
Because we primarily rely on third parties to perform the manufacturing, assembly and most of the testing of our semiconductor products, we do not generally encounter issues with child labor, forced labor or human trafficking in our direct operations. Indirect salient human rights risks exist primarily in our supply chains and with local community members. Although we may not have direct control over or causal relationships with these risks, we are committed to raising awareness of our expectations and working toward mitigating any potential link or contribution to these risks.
Due to our reliance on suppliers, our Company has taken specific steps to prevent human rights abuses in our supply chain through our engagement with the RBA. Our efforts to prevent, mitigate and remediate our human rights risks and impacts in our supply chain include annual assessments of suppliers’ operations in accordance with the RBA SAQ, engagement with suppliers to ensure conformance to our expectations, risk-based onsite audits and participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives.
As previously discussed, we require our primary semiconductor manufacturing suppliers to complete the RBA SAQ, which includes human rights risks, such as working hours, child labor, freedom of association and more. All our primary semiconductor manufacturing suppliers comply with this requirement, and all have low-risk manufacturing facilities according to the SAQ ratings. In addition, we encourage our primary semiconductor manufacturing suppliers to complete an RBA Validated Assessment Process (VAP) audit.
During VAP audits, certified third-party auditors conduct record reviews, manager interviews and worker interviews for conformance to all standards of the RBA Code of Conduct covering labor, health and safety, environment, ethics and management systems. For more information on the VAP, please see the RBA VAP guidance documents.
Our internal Human Rights Working Group focuses on strengthening our management of human rights risks. This cross-functional team includes representatives from departments including Legal, Procurement, Corporate Responsibility, Government Affairs, Environment, Health and Safety, Security, DEI, Supply Chain, Risk and Compliance, Privacy and Cybersecurity. The working group is responsible for implementing, improving and supporting adherence to our human rights practices and for engaging external stakeholders on our human rights approach.
We are committed to providing remedies for individuals or communities where we have identified that our Company or third parties acting on our behalf caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts. As such, we have a formal, third-party operated grievance and remedy mechanism, Business Conduct Hotline. The hotline is a comprehensive and confidential reporting tool available to anyone — external or internal — to raise concerns, ask questions or seek guidance anonymously.
Learn more in Qualcomm's 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report
