Modern Slavery Statement

 

What is the Modern Slavery Act 2015?

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the “Act”) seeks to address the role of businesses in preventing modern slavery occurring in their organisations and supply chains. It applies to businesses of a certain size, which are required to publish a statement setting out the steps they have taken to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in their business or supply chains.

 

Who are Tiny Box Company Ltd?

In 2007, the Tiny Box Company’s founder, Rachel Watkyn, searched for recycled packaging for her range of ethical and fair-trade jewellery and accessories. After months of research, Rachel found that there was an extremely high demand for recycled and ethical packaging but no one to meet that demand.

Over fourteen years later, Tiny Box Company has over 700 products in stock and has over 40,000 customers, ranging from one-person jewellery designers to international corporations.

The ways in which we operate at Tiny Box Company reflect our core values of ethical and sustainable living. 

 

Our Commitment

Tiny Box Company Ltd and its associated companies are committed to the highest standards of social and environmental responsibility and ethical conduct. Whilst we are not legally required to comply with the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 due to our size, we adopt the spirit of the Act where possible.  As such, we have developed strong and long-standing relationships with our supply chain and have visited supplier premises in the past. 

This voluntary statement has been published in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015. It sets out the steps taken by Tiny Box Company Ltd to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in its business and supply chains.

We have never and will never knowingly engage in modern slavery in any of its forms.  We have clear processes in place in terms of recruitment and payment of all employees, and our Whistleblowing Policy is set out in our Company handbook.

Our recruitment and people management processes are designed to ensure that all prospective employees are legally entitled to work in the UK and to safeguard employees from any abuse or coercion once in our employment.

 

Our Supply Chain

Whilst not directly affected, we recognise that we may form part of a larger business’ supply chain and therefore believe it is important to be able to satisfy any due diligence requirements.

Our supply chain is limited, and we procure goods and services from a restricted range of UK and overseas suppliers.  We currently work with suppliers of packaging and materials who are based in the US, China and the UK. 

 

Relevant policies

We operate the following policies that describe our approach to the identification of modern slavery risks and steps to be taken to prevent slavery and human trafficking in its operations:

• Whistleblowing policy - We encourage all our workers, customers and other business partners to report any concerns related to the 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 retaliation. Employees, customers or others who have concerns can [use our confidential helpline/complete our confidential disclosure form].

• Employee code of conduct – set out in our Employee Company Handbook, our code makes clear to employees the actions and behaviour expected of them when representing our organisation. We strive to maintain the highest standards of employee conduct and ethical behaviour.
• Supplier/Procurement code of conduct - We are committed to ensuring that our suppliers adhere to the highest standards of ethics. Through our due diligence process, suppliers are required to demonstrate that they provide safe working conditions where necessary, treat workers with dignity and respect, and act ethically and within the law in their use of labour. However, serious violations of our supplier code of conduct will lead to a full review of our suppliers standards and ethics and may lead to the termination of the business relationship.
• Recruitment/Agency workers policy - We use only specified, reputable employment agencies to source labour and always verify the practices of any new agencies before accepting workers from that agency.
• Employee Awareness – understanding the risk our business faces from modern slavery in its supply chains, forms part of the induction process for all individuals who work for us, and any updates will be provided using established methods of communication. This statement has also been published internally and is available to all employees.

 

Due Diligence

We undertake due diligence when considering taking on new suppliers, and regularly review our existing suppliers. Our due diligence and reviews include:

• mapping and creating a risk profile for each supplier in the supply chain to broadly assess particular product or geographical risks of modern slavery and human trafficking;

• reviewing on a regular basis all aspects of the supply chain based on the supply chain mapping;
• conducting supplier assessments through the organisation's own staff, which have a greater degree of focus on slavery and human trafficking where general risks are identified.

This statement is reviewed regularly and has been approved by Rachel Watkyn, MD and owner of Tiny Box Company Ltd.