Code of Conduct for Business Partners
Our business partners are fundamental for our success and have a major influence on our sustainability performance. To fulfill our mission "we create value for people and the planet by taking responsibility for our social and environmental impact.", we require our business partners to comply with this code of conduct.
General Commitment
As our business partner, you must commit to actively collaborate with us on sustainability. This commitment requires an appropriate and reasonable effort from both sides as it is a shared responsibility. This includes undertaking due diligence measures to analyse, avoid or minimise negative impact of our business activities and products on the society and the environment.
A key part of this is the establishment of an adequate risk management system and own sustainability strategy. Our business partners are responsible to ensure compliance in their own business area and strive to ensure compliance within their own supply chain.
Environment
As our business partner, you must comply with applicable environmental laws and regulations at all times. This includes obtaining all relevant permits and licenses.
You must also implement an effective environmental management system. The system must support you in minimising waste, noise as well as emissions to air, soil and water. This specifically includes greenhouse gas emissions and assessing associated impacts on biodiversity. It must cover the international and local standards to the handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste as well as ensure the harm-free handling of chemicals. It also shall contribute to the recycling and reuse of materials and products.
Social
We expect our business partners to always act with respect to human dignity - whether towards employees, suppliers, customers, third parties, local community members... simply: always.
Social compliance requests our business partners to not:
x make use of child or forced labour, or use or contribute to slavery, servitude or compulsory labour and human trafficking;
x discriminate based on race, colour, sex, language, national or social origin, birth or other status, ethnicity, cultural background, age, disability, religious beliefs, political or other opinion, sexual orientation or any other characteristic;
x exceed the maximum legal working hours;
x obstruct workers' rights to assembly, association, and collective bargaining;
x make use of any type of mental and/or physical forms of disciplinary action and engage in systematic harassment;
x pay below legal minimum wage or compensate overtime without applicable premium.
Governance
All forms of engagement in bribery and corruption are strictly prohibited. As our business partner you must not tolerate any form of direct or indirect engagement in corruption or bribery. This includes not to grant, offer, promise or accept anything of value to officials, auditors, one of our employees or any other relevant person in the private sector to influence action or obtain an improper advantage.
As our business partner you must install and maintain an effective internal grievance system for all employees and other people affected by your business operation. This may include neighbouring communities. We expect full cooperation to implement external grievance systems, when required.
Monitoring
We reserve the right to monitor all business partners for compliance with this code of conduct, on a regular or ad hoc basis if necessary. This may be carried out by specialised third parties. We will address cases of non-compliance with appropriate and reasonable actions. This most likely means, working together with our business partner to resolve non-compliance within an adequate time frame. As a prerequisite for that, the business partner must invest an appropriate and reasonable effort to remediate. We reserve the right to end the business relations in case of serious or repeated infringement.
Any potential non-compliances, especially from our side or third parties, shall be reported through TGI's grievance mechanism on our website.
