The Transparency Act shall promote enterprises’ respect for fundamental human rights and decent working conditions as well as securing the general public’s access to information. The act imposes on BDO an information obligation and a duty to carry out due care assessments, as one example.
The act also implies that BDO must be able to give the public access to information on these matters and the work BDO is carrying out to ensure this.
BDO’s suppliers and business partners are central to our ability to carry out our business. BDO’s wish is that our business relationships are based upon trust and openness, and that our suppliers share our attitude towards ethics and compliance. Our suppliers and business partners shall respect basic requirements to human rights, employee rights and environment.
Our efforts in complying with the act will be carried out in accordance with OECD’s due diligence guidance for responsible business conduct. We have started mapping our supplier chains concerning the risk areas comprised by the Transparency Act and contacted some suppliers to provide us with additional information. This work will be an ongoing process, whereby we successively will uncover potential risk, clarify whether it is real and, if this is the case, work to reduce or remove possible damage.
The Board in BDO AS and the Board in BDO Advokater AS have approved our policy for the Transparency Act and given the CEOs of BDO AS and BDO Advokater the responsibility for BDO’s compliance with the act. Based on the policy, BDO has prepared ethical guidelines for suppliers. You can read the guidelines here.
Please direct any questions about BDO’s compliance with the Transparency Act to apenhetsloven@bdo.no.