governance and ethics
‘Human rights are a fundamental and non-negotiable concept. The effort required to tackle abuses of human rights around the world is more than any one organisation can achieve, however large. Collaboration is vital, this is not an issue for competitive advantage or protecting intellectual property. I commend Tarmac and CRH's plan to collaborate widely on this issue and look forward to seeing positive outcomes.”
Shaun McCarthy OBE, Chair, Supply Chain Sustainability School
There is never a good business reason to do the wrong thing. We are committed to ensuring that a culture of strong governance, ethics and integrity is embedded within our business.
This is not only the right thing to do but helps to reduce business risk, ensures we maintain our licence to operate and the trust of our stakeholders.
highlights
BES 6002 Verification
Ethical Labour Standard
100%
compliance with anti-bribery and competition law requirements
Actively supports
GLAA Construction Protocol
Upholding good business conduct
Our culture as a company is built on our commitment to upholding Tarmac values, in particular doing what we say and leading with integrity. This means we do the right things in the right way, comply with the law and work responsibly. To ensure that we are continuously meeting these values, everyone who works for Tarmac has a duty to understand and abide by our Code of Business Conduct.
Operating with integrity
We operate with integrity across our business and provide formal, confidential ways to report concerns through a “speak up” hotline, an independent, reporting service that is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The hotline allows employees, customers, suppliers and other external stakeholders to raise any concerns they may have relevant to Code of Business Conduct, inappropriate or illegal behaviour or violations of any company policies or laws. All concerns are handled discreetly and are professionally investigated with appropriate actions taken based on investigation findings.
Compliance training
Compliance with the law is a core value underpinning how Tarmac does business. We expect all employees to be aware of and have a good understanding of the policies and procedures we have in place.
All employees receive training and awareness on the basic provisions of competition law and receive clear and simple guidance on how to comply in our everyday business.
Some employees, such as commercial mangers and other colleague more exposed to competition law and other compliance risks due to the nature of their role receive Advanced Compliance Training. Our Advanced Compliance Training considers issues such as anti-bribery and corruption, fraud prevention and awareness and competition law. Despite the disruption to our business from the COVID-19 pandemic, our annual training and awareness programmes continued to be delivered through the provision of interactive compliance e-learning modules and virtual face to face training and workshop events.
Cyber Security
To ensure compliance with our IT policy and requirements, Tarmac colleagues completed a number of cyber security e-learning modules covering general use of IT equipment, how to spot and avoid phishing attacks, all of which contribute to our wider ‘Cyber Essentials’ programme.
Cyber Essentials is a simple but effective, Government backed scheme that helps protect organisations against a whole range of the most common cyber attacks. Certification to the scheme requires organisations implement a number of best practice security controls such as running up to date software and vendor supported IT systems and devices.
As well as providing critical protection for our own business, Cyber Essentials helps to give a level of protection to our customers and provides them with assurance that the data we handle will remain secure when we do business with them.
Tarmac is a responsible and ethical business and, as part of our established Procurement and Human Resources processes, we are committed to respecting human and labour rights and take all reasonable steps to ensure that modern slavery (in any form) does not take place in our business and wider sphere of influence such as in our supply chain.
To help raise awareness of this important issue with our employees across the business, the company has developed a short e-learning module which we plan to roll out in 2021. The module sets out to provide a summary of what modern slavery is and the potential risks is poses to our business. It also gives an overview of our policies, systems and processes to prevent modern slavery, the key signs of modern slavery and how to identify them and confirms the arrangements we have in place for employees to report any concerns.
The company’s 2020 modern slavery statement includes goals for 2021 and beyond.
Ethical Labour Sourcing
Tarmac has achieved certification to BES 6002, the Ethical Labour Sourcing (ELS) Standard, which was developed by BRE in response to the 2015 Modern Slavery Act. The ELS standard verifies our approach to due diligence around human rights and ethical concerns when sourcing materials, products and services including labour, and which are actively identifying and working towards eradicating the exploitation of vulnerable workers. Achieving BES 6002 helps us to demonstrate our ongoing work in this area and ensures that we are continuing to meet our customers’ expectations for responsibly sourced construction materials.
GLAA Construction Protocol
In 2020, Tarmac continued its commitment to safeguarding employees within its business and the wider construction sector. As a signatory to the Gangmaster and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), Construction Protocol, a public initiative aimed at eradicating modern slavery and labour exploitation, we are collaborating with some of the industry’s biggest organisations to prevent and protect workers from abusive or exploitative practices.
Our sustainability strategy forms an integral part of the Tarmac Plan and the long-term success of our business. We use our management systems and process to support the implementation, delivery, and progress of the strategy.
We carry out a formal annual review of our strategy, working with our External Sustainability Panel, to ensure it continues to be relevant, appropriate, and sufficiently ambitious. Our External Sustainability Panel met twice in 2020, visiting our National Skills and Safety Park in Nottinghamshire, to discuss topics such as sustainable construction and provided support to the business with the development of our new Sustainability Strategy.
Looking forward
Upholding the highest standards of governance and ethics will continue to be a priority for Tarmac under our new sustainability strategy. It is critical to how we do business and will remain core to our overall approach. The structure of our new strategy has been revised to reflect this and any future work relating to governance and ethics will be included under the ‘Our purpose’ section in our new strategy.