Human Rights

Our efforts are anchored in policies that apply across our business—from our own operations to our supply chain, and from the design and use of our technology to the communities we impact. We regularly review our policies to identify areas for update and improvement, engaging external stakeholders and benchmarking against international human rights standards and evolving industry norms.

Our Global Human Rights Principles demonstrate our commitment to respecting human rights and the dignity of people connected to our business around the world.

Our Supply Chain Standards detail the requirements and expectations for our suppliers, their supply chains, and selling partners that list products in our stores. They are grounded in principles of inclusivity, continuous improvement, and supply chain accountability. We engage with suppliers that are committed to these same principles; suppliers commit to these standards as a condition of doing business with us. At least every three years, in line with industry best practices, we review our Supply Chain Standards against policies developed by industry associations. Additionally, we review these standards in consultation with human rights experts and organizations, including Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), Impactt Limited, International Center for Research on Women, Nest, the Responsible Business Alliance, and UN Women.

We’re committed to embedding human rights considerations into decision-making across our company and into our policy and governance framework. Amazon’s Board of Directors is responsible for the control and direction of Amazon and regularly reviews reports on various aspects of our business, including related risks and the strategies for addressing them. While the entire Board has overall responsibility for risk oversight, the Board has delegated responsibility for certain risks to its committees.

Among other duties and responsibilities, the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee oversees Amazon’s environmental, social, and corporate governance policies and initiatives. These include policies and initiatives related to corporate social responsibility, such as human rights and ethical business practices, and related risks most relevant to Amazon’s operations and engagement with customers, suppliers, and communities. Among other duties and responsibilities, the Leadership Development and Compensation Committee oversees Amazon’s strategies and policies related to human capital management, including diversity and inclusion, workplace environment and safety, and corporate culture. The committees regularly meet with management and review these matters.

As a global company, we recognize the responsibility and opportunity we have to raise awareness among our employees on human rights issues. We have a central team that works across the company to operationalize human rights due diligence and embed human rights considerations into everyday business decisions. We also offer trainings tailored to salient human rights risks. For example, our forced labor awareness program makes ongoing training available to employees around the world to help them recognize indicators of forced labor and report concerns to appropriate authorities in a way that puts the interests of potential victims first.

We’re committed to assessing, prioritizing, and addressing adverse human rights impacts connected to our business, and are continually working to improve our approach. At Amazon, businesses deploy a variety of mechanisms to do this.

In our supply chain, we assess and respond to risk by leveraging internal and external data and guidance from external stakeholders, including industry experts, civil society groups, and nongovernmental organizations. We engage directly with suppliers and their workers, and conduct independent audits to verify compliance with our Supply Chain Standards. We work with suppliers on appropriate remediation measures and offer partnerships and programs to help them address risks and invest in worker well-being.

We recognize that audits alone are insufficient to drive long-term change across industries. We, like many companies in similar industries, are exploring new ways to encourage improvement in worker protections. These include supporting suppliers’ efforts to improve their grievance mechanisms, supplier capacity-building programs, worker trainings, and collaborations with other brands and civil society. We currently focus our supply chain efforts on key commitment areas: Safe Workplaces, Freely Chosen Employment, Gender Equity, Fair Wages, Environmental Protection, and Grievance Mechanisms.

Within our own operations, our central team focuses on human rights due diligence and collaborates with teams dedicated to assessing, prioritizing, and addressing human rights risks to our employees. These teams focus on establishing open communication with Amazon employees, providing them with meaningful grievance mechanisms, building a diverse and inclusive workplace, and keeping our employees safe. We know we have more to do, and we’re committed to widening our lens to better understand the potential human rights impacts of our business.

We’re committed to driving best practices in human rights due diligence through increased disclosures about our approach and by expanding our stakeholder engagement. Each year, we track progress on our human rights commitments and publicly share up-to-date information about our programs, including external partnerships with organizations that share our core human rights values.

Transparency is an important tool to help us understand and address risks in our value chain and identify opportunities for collaboration on systemic issues. We publish an interactive supply chain map that provides details on suppliers of Amazon-branded apparel, consumer electronics, food and beverage, and home goods products. We provide data from supplier assessments annually, including year-over-year data on High- and Medium-level issues in our supply chain. We report on actions to prioritize the three foundational commitments identified in our enterprisewide saliency assessment. We also contribute lists of our apparel suppliers to the Open Apparel Registry to foster brand collaboration and action in the apparel industry.

We report annually in line with the UNGP Reporting Framework and publish an annual Modern Slavery Statement.

Engagement with external stakeholders is key to our human rights due diligence approach. This collaboration is essential to identifying positive outcomes for people connected to our business and is part of our responsibility to respect human rights in line with the UNGPs. We rely on experts and affected rights-holders to inform our approach and validate that our efforts have the impact we intend. Through regular stakeholder engagement and strategic partnerships, we incorporate invaluable expert input into our work, helping us achieve greater impact on people connected to our business around the world.

As part of our first enterprisewide human rights saliency assessment, we made a foundational commitment that those in our value chain have the opportunity for concerns to be heard and issues to be resolved. Focusing on listening to the people connected to our business and understanding their experiences to address risks and remedy issues is a critical element of our human rights approach and a core obligation under the UNGPs.

In our operations, consistent, honest, and open communication with our employees allows us to continually improve our workplace experience, empowering individuals to voice concerns and have them directly addressed by leadership. Our goal is to hear from and listen to everyone. Dedicated teams across the company focus on establishing open communication with our employees, providing them with meaningful grievance mechanisms and avenues for dialogue with leadership. Aligning with the UNGP Reporting Framework, Amazon’s policies and practices are designed to promote respect for the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining and to comply with the legal requirements of the countries where we operate. As stated in our Leadership Principles, we Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer, offering a safer, more productive, higher performing, more diverse, and more just work environment. We have many policies, practices, and mechanisms in place to provide open lines of communication between leadership and employees, and act regularly to address employee concerns and make improvements. We recognize that Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large.

Our aim is that every worker across our supply chain has access to an effective grievance mechanism. We work with suppliers to increase their capacity to develop these mechanisms by creating channels to hear directly from workers about their experiences and to support the resolution of issues from workers’ perspectives.