Swarovski respects the human rights of everyone who contributes to our business – both our employees and the people working in our supply chain. To ensure transparency and maintain our compliance with recent legislation we have prepared the following statement.
On 1 January 2012, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 went into effect in the State of California, USA. This law was designed to increase the amount of information made available by manufacturers and retailers regarding their efforts to address the issue of slavery and human trafficking, thereby allowing consumers to make better, more informed choices regarding the products they buy and the companies they choose to support.
On 29 October 2015, the United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act 2015 came into force as means to prevent modern slavery from occurring in businesses’ supply chains and organisations. This law requires (among others) for certain businesses to produce a statement every year setting out the steps they have taken to ensure there is no modern slavery in their own business and their supply chains. Swarovski Crystal Business (Swarovski) is opposed to slavery and human trafficking and defines its basic principles to conduct business in a lawful and ethical manner and to support the right of all individuals to be free from slavery and any kind of forced labor in the workplace.
On 21 June 2018, New South Wales became the first Australian jurisdiction to pass modern slavery specific legislation, in the form of the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (NSW). This regime imposes new reporting obligations on businesses to identify and detail their actions to address risks of modern slavery in their supply chains. The piece of legislation mandates supply chain reporting dealing with the organization’s consideration of and response to modern slavery in its supply chains.
Through our Responsible Sourcing Initiative (RSI) established in 2014, we are requiring our suppliers of finished goods to adhere to the tenets of our Supplier Code of Conduct by asking our suppliers within all our direct spend procurement categories (those providing goods that feed into our end products) to sign and adhere to the Code when entering a business relation with us. In a second step, we identify through a risk assessment select suppliers that should be in the scope of the RSI. Generally, we classify suppliers that produce in low or middle-income countries as more at risk to forced labor and other bad labor practices.
Further, we then monitor the selected suppliers’ approach to improving labor conditions by means of a third party audit (such as the Responsible Jewellery Council (‘RJC’), Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (‘SMETA’) and Social Accountability International’s SA8000 standards), or our own internal labor assessment (based on the SMETA standard), which our Corporate Sustainability team conducts. We conduct follow-up audits in dependence of the result between 6 to 18 months after of the initial audit.
All our owned factories in Austria, Serbia, Thailand, India and Vietnam, which produce the majority of our products, were audited against the SMETA or an equivalent international recognized standard by third party-party auditors. Swarovski does not disclose the specific results of its audits. The audits may be announced or unannounced and are conducted in dependence of the respective standard’s re-audit cycle.
Swarovski is committed to continuously work to expand and improve its RSI with the goal of bringing all of its suppliers into the scope of RSI audits.
Through the Responsible Sourcing Initiative, our program to monitor working conditions among suppliers, we recognize, and encourage, suppliers to seek RJC and/or SA8000 certifications. However, as we strive to minimize duplication of audits and certification in factories, we let our suppliers choose their own approach.
Our own factories receive regular training and constant advice by various experts in dependence on their needs. For instance, as part of our commitment to the RJC, we are developed or strengthened monitoring solutions and training programs for our Gemstones Business and our US-based personalized jewellery business, Chamilia. Similarly, we train and constantly support our other factories to ensure compliance with their respective requirements.