With our Code of Conduct we provide our employees with a guideline that brings together the key basic behavioural principles underlying our activities and helps them master the legal and ethical challenges of their daily work. The Code of Conduct constitutes a Group-wide guideline that is binding for all of our employees and members of executive bodies. Each individual bears equal responsibility for ensuring compliance with the Code.
Based on these principles,
- we act responsibly, for the benefit of our customers, shareholders and employees;
- we consider compliance with international conventions, laws and internal rules to be the basis for sustainable and successful economic activities;
- we act in accordance with our declarations;
- we accept responsibility for our actions.
The Group’s values – “closeness to the customer, superior performance, value creation, renewability, respect, responsibility and sustainability” – are the basis for Group-wide collaboration and have been incorporated into our Code of Conduct.
Along with our corporate values, we base our actions on a number of conventions, laws and internal regulations drawn up by international organisations. They are primarily addressed to the respective member states, not to individual companies. They do, however, constitute important guidelines for the behaviour of an international corporate group and its employees. We therefore attach great importance worldwide to ensuring that our corporate activities are in keeping with these guidelines. The main conventions of this kind are listed below:
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dating from 1948 (UNO)
- European Convention on Human Rights, 1950
- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966
- Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy, ILO (International Labour Organisation) 1977
- ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, 1998 (especially the following topics: abolition of child labour; elimination of forced or compulsory labour; ban on discrimination; freedom of association; and the right to collective bargaining)
- OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, 1997
- “Agenda 21” on sustainable development (final document of the groundbreaking United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro 1992)
- Principles of the Global Compact for more social and more ecological globalisation, 1999
- OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, 2000
We also profess our commitment to the “Declaration on Social Rights and Industrial Relationships at Volkswagen” (Volkswagen Social Charter) and the Charter on Labour Relations concerning fundamental social rights and principles. 
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On the way to sustainable mobility it is only by taking a longer-term view of the future that we will be able to integrate underlying social and technological trends into our research and development activities. It was with this in mind that Volkswagen Group Research formulated its “Research Visions” in 2010. The topics are mobility, energy, the driving experience, safety, cost-effectiveness in the product life cycle, and the environment. And with our Environmental Radar we have also created a separate early-warning system for evaluating ecological risks.
