Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking statement

Financial Year 2020/21

This statement is made pursuant to s.54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and sets out the steps that the Biwater Group has taken and is continuing to take to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain.

Modern slavery encompasses slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. Biwater has a zero-tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery. The Biwater Group maintains its practices to combat slavery and human trafficking and we will continue to work with all our stakeholders on such policies during the forthcoming financial year.

Organisation’s structure

The Biwater group is an international group of companies (the Biwater Group) involved in the design, construction and operation of water and wastewater treatment plants throughout the world.

Biwater Holdings Limited is the holding company of the Biwater Group and has its head office in Dorking, United Kingdom. The Biwater Group has 289 employees worldwide and operates in a number of other countries including the France, Malaysia, the Philippines, Algeria, Morocco, Kurdistan, Ghana, Nigeria, the U.S.A, Panama, and Nicaragua.

Our business is organised into a number of business units with regional offices in France Nigeria, Malaysia, The U.S.A and Panama.

The Biwater Group has a global annual turnover of in excess of £21 million.

Our Policy on Slavery and Human Trafficking.

We operate a number of internal policies to ensure that we are conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner. These include:

Anti-slavery policy. This policy sets out Biwater’s stance on modern slavery and explains how employees can identify any instances of this and where they can go for help.
Recruitment policy. We operate a robust recruitment policy, including conducting eligibility to work in the UK checks for all employees to safeguard against human trafficking or individuals being forced to work against their will.
Whistleblowing policy. We operate a whistleblowing policy so that all employees know that they can raise concerns about how colleagues are being treated, or practices within our business or supply chain, without fear of reprisals.
Ethical Trading and Business Ethics Policies. These policies explain the manner in which we behave as an organization and how we expect our employees and suppliers to act.

Our suppliers

We are committed to ensuring there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or any part of our business and to acting ethically and with integrity in all of our business dealings and relationships. We expect the same high standards from all of our contractors, suppliers and other business partners.

We will only use reputable recruitment agencies and will continue to ensure that all employee checks are undertaken to confirm eligibility to work.

Supplier adherence to our values and due diligence

We have zero tolerance to slavery and human trafficking. To help ensure those in our supply chain, our contractors and business partners comply with our values, we undertake a prequalification process with all suppliers and proposed contractors that includes specific details of compliance with respect to slavery and human trafficking and in the case of major companies, evidence of their policies. Failure in this regard, disqualifies that supplier.

In addition, Biwater include with all Purchase Orders, the Terms and Conditions that include a contractual requirement for supplier adherence to this requirement.

We will continually review our contracting processes and, where appropriate, include contractual provisions which reflect the values set out in this statement and monitoring for compliance.

Actions to improve awareness and report on modern slavery or human trafficking

Our work policies and procedures will be reviewed and updated from time to time to include our policy statement on modern slavery and human trafficking and we will provide guidance on how any related concerns can be reported.

Training

We will undertake training for our management teams and procurement/buying teams so that they understand the signs of modern slavery and what to do if they suspect that it is taking place within our supply chain.

Our performance indicators

We will know the effectiveness of the steps that we are taking to ensure that slavery and/or human trafficking is not taking place within our business or supply chain if:

No reports are received from employees, the public, or law enforcement agencies to indicate that modern slavery practices have been identified.

Approval for this statement

This statement was approved by the Board of Directors of Biwater Holdings Limited on 29th March 2021 and will be reviewed annually.

Sir Adrian White CBE
Chairman
Biwater Holdings Limited

Download the Modern Slavery Act statement