Modern Slavery Statement

Introduction from our Managing Director 

At Lawsons we are committed to improving our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking. We recognise that slavery and human trafficking is a real yet hidden issue in our society. We will not tolerate slavery and human trafficking in our business or supply chain. We are committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business dealings and relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure that any form of slavery is not taking place in our own business or supply chains.

Our business

We are one of the largest independent timber, building materials and fencing merchants operating throughout London and the South East. In order to facilitate the needs of our customers, some of the goods which we source come from an international supply chain.

We are committed to ensuring there is transparency in our own business and in our approach to tackling modern slavery throughout our extended supply chains, consistent with our disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. We require adherence to these values from all our contractors, suppliers and other business partners and we expect that our suppliers will also hold their own suppliers to the same high standards.

Our policies on slavery and human trafficking

We have a zero tolerance approach to slavery and human trafficking. All employees undergo training on how to identify the signs of slavery and human trafficking as part of their induction programme which also signposts how to report suspected cases of slavery and human trafficking.

We operate a Whistleblowing policy which is also included in induction training and issued annually as refresher training. 

We encourage all our employees, customers and other business partners to report any concerns related to direct activities, or the supply chains of, our organisation. This includes any circumstances that may give rise to an enhanced risk of slavery or human trafficking. Our whistleblowing procedure is designed to make it easy for workers to make disclosures, without fear of reprisal and is on our website for ease of access for all parties.

Due diligence processes for slavery and human trafficking

As part of our commitment to identify and mitigate the risks of slavery and human trafficking in our business, we have conducted due diligence checks within our operating procedures. Going forward, these will enable us to:

• Carry out risk-based due diligence on our suppliers before we enter a trading relationship with them.
• Identify and assess potential risk areas in our existing supply chain, including those posed directly by our suppliers.
• Mitigate the risk of slavery and human trafficking occurring in our supply chains.
• Monitor potential risk areas in our supply chains.
• Promote and protect whistleblowers.

Supplier adherence to our ethics

To ensure all those in our supply chain comply with our ethics, we take great effort to ensure our suppliers are aware of our expectations. We achieve this through actively communicating with our suppliers throughout all stages of our relationship with them, setting the right tone and culture within our organization and with third parties including suppliers, and ensuring that we have a robust policies and processes in place that are inclusive of the requirement to carry out appropriate risk based due diligence on our suppliers.

We have a zero-tolerance approach to slavery and human trafficking within our business. Where we identify that a supplier or another party within our supply chain has not met the high standards we set, we will require them to rectify the matter immediately. Should they fail to do this we cease our dealings with them.

Training

To ensure a high level of understanding of the risks of modern slavery and human trafficking in our supply chains and our business, we will be providing training to our employees annually and at the point of induction, which will ensure they know where to find our modern slavery statement.

As part of this training we will ensure our employees know who they should speak to if they have a concern. We also enable employees to report their concerns confidentially.

Whistleblowers

We encourage whistleblowers from wherever they originate, whether this is internally or externally, and are committed to protecting them and their identity.

Taking robust action

Where we identify a need to act, we will do so decisively and swiftly. 

Jeremy Norris
Managing Director 
Lawsons