The question of how to achieve this continuous on-going discussion then arises. It’s important that this is not executed in an overly artificial way, though there are of course procedural obligations, and we have taken steps to strengthen these.
For example, we have established a practice in which every member of the staff is required to sign a letter indicating that they have read the Code of Conduct and undertake to comply with its contents in their work.
We have also been including the code more strongly in development discussions. In my opinion, this is a highly suitable forum in which to determine whether our people fully understand the code’s contents, and where they can address any issues they have with it, or seek to clarify their understanding.
Our broader efforts to encourage this discussion begin with management. It’s a gradual process, with results that are difficult to quantify, but as a benchmark we can consider a similar journey we have already taken with the subject of safety. This was flagged as a vital topic for us some time ago, as well as an area where improvements could be made through better communication.
Fast-forward to the present, and after much work around the theme we are making more and more progress with safety year-by-year (something well documented elsewhere in our annual report), and it’s a subject our management bring up in communications quite naturally – and without any external prompting.
So we know it can be done, and this is what we hope to achieve also with these admittedly more complex ethical questions. This would certainly make knowledge of potential ethical considerations a more constant companion in our work.