Business Partners
Expectations of companies are changing. Increasingly, social and environmental considerations form part of how brands are viewed and assessed. Most significantly, companies are expected to assume a share of responsibility and accountability for maintaining standards of ethical, social and environmental performance across their supply chains. This expectation is particularly acute for consumer brands where this is a matter of customer confidence. We operate in specialised markets and many of our supplier relationships have been built over many decades.
A key principle for Richemont is that responsibility for implementation of the supplier code of conduct should form part of normal commercial practice. As such, individual Maisons are responsible for working with suppliers on compliance with the code. However, a key challenge for the watchmaking “Maisons” is that suppliers are common to more than one brand. Richemont has developed a risk review process to assess levels of risk based on factors such as country of operation, knowledge of the business and the nature of the product. This process has been applied to all common suppliers and a lead “Maison” agreed and appointed to work with those suppliers identified as high risk to audit practice and agree remedial actions as necessary. This programme of activity will continue in 2007/08.
The most significant areas of supply chain responsibility for a jewellery company relate to diamonds and gold. Richemont, along with other leading jewellery retailers, jewellery trade associations, mining companies and the wider jewellery supply chain are committed to ensuring that the entire supply chain operates in an ethically, socially and environmentally responsible manner. Meeting this commitment is not easy as the structure of the market is complex. The supply chain for a diamond ring can include mining houses, gold refiners and smelters, banks and metal trading companies for gold and mining houses, trading houses and cutters and polishers for diamonds. At the same time, jewellery only forms a small part of the global market for precious metals and stones. As an example, the most significant precious metal purchased by Richemont is gold and annually we use less than 0.5% of annual world output.
Established in 2005, the Council is a voluntary initiative bringing together representatives from all parts of the supply chain from mine to retail to work together on promoting ethically, socially and environmentally responsible business practice across the gold and diamond jewellery supply chain. Much has been achieved by the Council in the short period of its existence, but there is also much to do. Since launch, the Council has developed its Mission Statement, a Statement of Principles and adopted a Code of Practices. These documents were drafted based on a process of open and wide consultation. Work is underway on the process for implementing this code including third party monitoring. This is expected to begin in 2008..
|
Print
Mail to
Bookmark
Given this complexity and the fact that no one company has the power to change the way the market is structured, a number of companies that share our commitment to socially and environmentally integrity in the supply chain agreed that an integrated approach was necessary.