FOUNDER’S STATEMENT OF CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR THE GLOBAL COMPACT

Euromonitor International became a signatory to the UN Global Compact in 2012 and we are pleased to submit our eighth Communication on Progress affirming our visible commitment to supporting the ten United Nations Global Compact principles, along with our continued drive to align with the UN Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

We are committed to conducting our business in a sustainable, ethical, and responsible manner, ensuring that the impact on the communities with which we have dealings is positive and that all who supply goods or services to Euromonitor show integrity and respect for international human rights and the environment. It is our belief that responsible business practices are essential to long term sustainable success and must be reflected in our workplace.

On behalf of Euromonitor’s Chief Executive, Board of Directors and employees around the world, I am delighted to present this report which we will be sharing with all our stakeholders over the coming months.

Robert Senior
Founder
June 2020

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and

Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

Commitment

Euromonitor International supports and respects the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights. The scope is broad but includes:
• non-discrimination against, and behaviour towards, vulnerable groups
• civil and political rights
• economic, social and cultural rights
• fundamental principles and rights at work

We recognise there are global differences in accepted practices with regards to standards in safe working environments, child protection and other aspects of human rights. However, we ensure we work to the highest standards across all regions rather than just meeting local requirements.

We are committed to the well-being of our employees, in-country analysts and contractors, creating safe, positive and professional work places.

Implementation

We have extensive global policies regarding equal opportunities, flexible working, parental leave, work-life balance and anti-harassment and bullying amongst others. All employees are briefed at induction and every policy is available on the company’s intranet.

Euromonitor requires all suppliers to comply with the full requirements of the Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code (ETI Base Code). In addition to compliance with the provisions of the ETI Base Code, we are committed to ensuring that modern slavery does not take place anywhere in our business or in any of our supply chains. Modern slavery may take various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking and is a crime and a violation of human rights, which exploits a person for personal or commercial gain. In accordance with our Modern Slavery Statement, found on our website, we are committed to tackling modern slavery throughout our business.

We believe that an important part of upholding and promoting human rights is the commitment a business makes to its local communities. From April 2017 we have committed 1% of our turnover to our corporate social responsibility spend, an amount which equated to roughly £1.45 million in 2019-2020. As signatories of the UN Global Compact we have chosen to align a major part of our community investment programme with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and carefully measure how each of our charity partnerships contribute to the success of the goals.

In 2019/2020 we partnered with Justice & Care through our Headline Partnership programme. With our support the organisation is creating an expert witness training programme to improve the number of UK modern slavery and trafficking cases ending in a prosecution.

Measurement

Management of Euromonitor offices is regularly reviewed by the Leadership Board to ensure all policies are being implemented correctly. Euromonitor is compliant with all legal employment requirements in every respect, and in many cases, exceeds minimum requirements. In the past year Euromonitor International has not been subject to any investigations, legal cases or incidents involving human rights.

In 2019 we completed a SMETA Audit as part of our membership of SEDEX (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) and are now fully compliant. We are also EcoVadis certified.

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;

Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;

Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and

Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Commitment

Euromonitor International hires, promotes, develops and compensates employees based on unbiased criteria and without regard to age, gender, disability, marital status, race, national origin, religion or sexual orientation or any other legally protected characteristics or status. Our Suppliers are also expected to recruit, employ and promote employees on the sole basis of the qualification and abilities needed for the work to be performed.

Euromonitor International promotes a positive in-house health and safety culture through regular health and safety checks and employee training. Suppliers shall provide a safe and hygienic environment for its workers.

Euromonitor International complies fully with all aspects of labour law in all countries in which it operates. Where our standards exceed those of local legislation, we apply our own policies.

Implementation

Euromonitor International has written policies that clearly state employee rights and responsibilities and their compensation and benefits. It is company policy to ensure that decisions concerning hiring, wages, promotion, training, discipline, retirement and termination are based only on unbiased criteria, and are not linked to any discriminatory characteristics. Staff members are encouraged to share any matters of concern with us without fear, in the knowledge that they will be taken seriously and that the matters will be investigated properly. The procedure for raising such concerns is outlined in our Whistleblowing Policy which is freely available to all staff via the company intranet.

In a number of our offices we are subsidising pay to the lowest paid external agency cleaners to make sure that nobody who works for us is earning less than a “living”, not a “minimum” wage.

We remain a member of Sedex (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) sharing information with our clients on four key areas: labour standards, health & safety, the environment and business ethics. As part of our Sedex membership we continue to ensure staff are aware of the Ethical Trading Initiative and that we are always upholding its 9 key areas.

In the last year we have partnered again with Micro Rainbow International: our donation is being used to provide an employment training programme for members of the LGBTI community in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The aim of the programme is to help members of the LGBTI community counter discrimination and low economic status through professional advancement and in many cases the opportunity of self-employment.

Through our Headline and Regional Partners programme we are funding several projects which directly support beneficiaries to combat discrimination and enter employment.
• Body and Soul in London supports through community-based healing children, young adults and families who have suffered trauma and discrimination
• Casa Central in Chicago USA is delivering an early learning academy programme to propel its beneficiaries towards a higher quality of life.
• Empowering Women in the Atlas in Morocco run a women’s cooperative providing seed funding for start-up rural businesses.
• Humanity and Inclusion are running a programme in Burkina Faso focusing on increasing the number of children with disabilities and refugee children enrolled in school
• Microrainbow International based in London is supporting the LGBTI community by providing safe temporary housing to those in need (including asylum seekers and refugees), providing employability support and focusing on social inclusion
• Unity in Health works on improving access to mental health services and supporting the social inclusion of those affected by mental illness in Nepal and Sri Lanka

Measurement

Euromonitor International’s HR team reviews the company’s responsibilities towards labour rights in relation to compliance with national and international law. We continue to monitor all health and safety incidents, recruitment statistics and sickness records to ensure compliance with our policies.

The CR Manager works with all community partners to evaluate the impact of our support. Reports are published on the Corporate Social Responsibility blog on our global website.

Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;

Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility;

Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.

Commitment

Good environmental practice is important in ensuring that we, and our suppliers, operate responsible and sustainable businesses, which reduce their negative impact on the environment as much as practicable and comply with all applicable environmental laws, regulations and standards.

Although Euromonitor International’s direct impact on the environment is relatively small we are keen to ensure continued commitment to our internal policies and controls. We take our responsibility in supporting initiatives that prevent and manage environmental risk very seriously.

Specifically, we are committed to:
• Conserve natural resources and reduce the environmental burden of waste generation
• Become single use plastic free across all our offices
• Reduce the consumption of energy through building assessment and control, and by encouraging employee awareness, individual action and proactive involvement
• Reduce the level of air travel and balance the impact of unavoidable flights
• Uses cleaning and stationery products where possible and green energy suppliers

Implementation

Staff engagement continues to be key to our work around environmental responsibility. Each year the company hosts a global Green Week that is organised by local CSR Committees in each office. A key focus in the last and coming year is becoming as far as possible plastic-free. We are actively encouraging our offices to stop using plastics, not just recycling plastic that has been used. Actions have included:

• Providing new starters with reusable water bottles
• Purchasing crockery and cutlery for all offices
• Removing plastic stirrers and straws from kitchens
• Introducing refillable metal soap containers in bathrooms

Energy reduction is a key element of our environmental management programme, with a focus on employee behaviour and building efficiency. In 2019 our London office underwent its second Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) audit. We have acted on two of the recommendations upgrading our HVAC software system and implementing a better monitoring and management system to access real time data on our energy consumption therefore enabling us to better analyse and manage it.

We continue to balance the impact of carbon emissions associated with all company flights and our energy consumption in all our offices with our Carbon Offsetting partners, The World Land Trust and Save the Orangutan.

Measurement

Euromonitor International’s Leadership Team is committed to reducing our environmental impact. The CSR Manager, working with the Director of Operations and Office Managers has day to day responsibility for our environmental programmes and activities.

We work with Measure My Energy Ltd to analyse and better understand our Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) consumption under the ESOS (Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme).

Based on their recommendations, we adjusted the settings on our HVAC system at our London office to be more efficient and to stop employees from being able to change it themselves. We also provided digital thermometers to highlight the real time temperature and the natural temperature difference across the floors. This enabled a 12% reduction in energy consumption in this building comparing data from calendar years 2018 and 2019.

Euromonitor International uses licensed waste companies for disposal of waste and recycling and approved carbon balanced programmes. Reports are regularly reviewed to ensure our systems are effective with the majority of refuse produced being recycled.

Euromonitor International has not been involved in any environmental incidents, nor has it been the subject of any investigations or legal proceedings by any regulating authority.

Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

Commitment

As a world leader in our field, Euromonitor International recognises that we have a duty to set the very highest standards for ethical business practice. Employees of Euromonitor International are made aware that bribery, corruption and extortion in any form is not tolerated within our company under any circumstances.

Implementation

In all our dealings we are committed to complying with applicable anti-corruption laws including those relating to actions that could be considered bribery. These laws, including the UK Bribery Act and the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and similar anti-corruption regulations throughout the world shall be complied with. Violations of anti-bribery laws can result in criminal convictions for the individuals and organisations concerned. Euromonitor International strictly forbids any form of bribery anywhere in the world by any Supplier.

The policy is supported by a web-based learning module available via Euromonitor University as well as employee briefings and complementary policies for example our Whistleblowing Policy.

We continue to work with our clients adopting and signing up to Codes of Conducts and Supplier Agreements through which we are able to demonstrate our commitment to responsible business practices .

Our Procurement Manager, Ivalina Ivanova, manages Euromonitor International's large supplier contracts ensuring they sign our EMI Supplier Code of Conduct which sets out our standards for their business.

In the last year, we have created a new role of a Legal Contracts Manager. Carla-Simone Kennedy, who oversees all contract queries including MSA’s, negotiations, internal templates and contract claims/disputes for Sales and the wider business.

We have also newly appointed Peter Vine as a Data Protection Manager to oversee and monitor compliance with applicable data protection legislation throughout the organisation, ensure that Euromonitor meets the standards set by, among other regulations, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act.

Measurement

All new staff members are issued with a copy of the Anti-bribery and Corruption Policy and asked to sign an acknowledgement slips, all acknowledgements are kept in the employee’s file by HR.

“Euromonitor International’s zero-tolerance approach to bribery and corruption must be communicated to all suppliers, contractors and business partners at the outset of our business relationship with them and as appropriate thereafter.”
Euromonitor International: Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy

Any suspicions, concerns or queries are reported in the first instance to the Operations Director and subsequently shared with the CR Manager for the purpose of monitoring and identifying any areas where additional support or training may be required.

During the last 12 months Euromonitor International has not been involved in any legal cases, rulings or other events related to bribery, corruption or extortion.