Protecting the rights of workers in our supply chains and championing worker voice.
People in supply chains
Raw materials sourcing
Sourcing our raw materials more sustainably, and collaborating with others to drive industry wide change.
Circularity and waste
Designing with circularity in mind and eradicating waste.
Climate Action
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in operations and supply chains.
Social impact
Connecting and giving back to communities and charitable causes.
Health and wellbeing
Enabling employees to lead a healthy and happy life.
Our Approach
Building strong relationships with people inside and outside our business is key to delivering our vision for ethics and sustainability and long-term business success. It is important we listen and respond to their concerns, are honest in our expectations and fair in how we communicate our performance.
Materiality
When sharing our ethics and sustainability priorities and progress we consider material information to be that which is of greatest interest to, and which has the potential to affect the perception of, those stakeholders who wish to make informed decisions and judgements about our commitment to sustainability. Our key stakeholders are our Partners, customers and local communities where we operate, our suppliers, Government, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and campaign groups.
We completed a full review of our Ethics and Sustainability Strategy. This enabled us to identify priority focus areas where we can have the greatest impact, as well as the key areas where we need to take sufficient action to remain credible; these are an integral part of our five-year Partnership Plan.
Governance
Strong governance of our management and mitigation of our sustainability and ethics risks is critical to ensure we meet and exceed our commitment to be a force for good. The Executive Team, led by Graham Slade, sets the strategic direction for sustainability and ethics across the Partnership.
The Blauberg UK Sustainability & Ethics Committee is led by Jackie Goggans.
Assurance
In line with end of year reporting, we undertake annual independent limited assurance over selected data points. For the 2020/21 financial year this process was carried out by Mazars.
For any remaining reported information, the Partnership’s sustainability and ethics team determine which assertions are deemed to be high-risk, or to have an inherent significant risk of error and/or impact on reputation if mis-stated. The team then carries out testing, which includes a range of evidence-gathering procedures. For some assertions testing might be directing specific and targeted enquiries to other Partners closely involved in relevant activities, while for some it may include corroborating information with third-party documentation, or recalculating data sets. Where the team is unable to obtain appropriate corroborating evidence, the assertion is not published; where evidence contradicts the assertion, amendments are made.