To ensure ethical and moral standards and foster relationships, our product design and purchasing staff are regularly on site. In addition, we commission external organizations to conduct ethical audits at our producers. Audits are production visits that examine hygiene, health, safety, waste management, child labor, working atmosphere and hours, and salaries for ethical standards.
For us, this is a tool to adequately monitor the productions even from far away. In addition, we would like to create awareness and importance for the listed areas among the production managers and employees.
All necessary measures are taken to ensure the health and safety of employees. Weaknesses will be identified, worked towards their elimination and reviewed again at the next audit. The age of employees is strictly checked during the recruitment process by our producers, thus leaving no chance for child labor. All forms of discrimination and disadvantage are prevented and wages comply with all legal requirements.
One challenge is to ensure that working hours and days off are respected, as it is unfortunately common for overtime to be worked. Of course, these are paid out, but the aim is to keep them as low as possible in the future to protect the workforce.
Furthermore, there is still potential for optimization in the recycling and disposal process of material residues. During our visits, however, we create awareness of the areas and provide incentives for improvement.