Amore Pacifics Guidelines for Sustainable Management of Partners
- Amore Pacific's guidelines for the sustainable management of partners are the requirement for its partners set by Amore Pacific in order to implement a safe working environment for SCM partners, so that they respect their workers and realize environment-friendly and ethical management. These guidelines define the requirements for the companies including all of Amore Pacific’s SCM partners.
- An external organization designated by Amore Pacific or Amore Pacific itself has the right to visit its partners to evaluate whether they are complying with the guidelines. If a critical violation of the guideline by partners is not corrected within the r equired time, then such may lead to the termination of transaction with Amore Pacific or cancellation of the contract.
- Amore Pacific maintains cooperative relations with partner's 2nd partners and next tier partners so that they can comply with the legal requirements related to social/environmental responsibilities and the requirements of Amore Pacific as defined in t he g uidelines and the contract.
- When the guidelines are in conflict with the local laws, then the stricter of the two have higher priority.
1. Human rights and labor
Partners should protect the rights of workers at a commonly acceptable level in the global community and guarantee their dignity. It is applicable to all types of workers including temporary workers, immigrant workers, students, and dispatched workers. Worker's rights and working condition should be protected by the local laws.
① Voluntary works
Partners should never allow itself to be associated with forced labor, exploitation labor, or involuntary labor; all labor works should be voluntary. Partners should not demand from a worker any ID, passport, or working visa issued by the government for reasons of hiring. Note, however, that, exceptions are allowed if required by the law. In addition, the working condition should be documented in a language that the workers can understand and delivered to them. The processing fees accruing during hiring should never be charged to the workers.
② Child workers
Partners should never hire a child worker in any manufacturing process. The minimum age for employment should be 15 years of age, the age when the compulsory education is completed or the minimum age for legal hiring in the country, whichever is higher. It is possible to hire a youth worker above the legal minimum hiring age, but workers aged 18 or younger should never be asked to perform risky works from the safety perspectives (extra time or night shift).
③ Wage and welfare
Partners should comply with the local and domestic laws and labor rules related to working time and overtime work; employees should never be requested to work overtime beyond that allowed by the law. In addition, partners should allow workers to take at least one day off every seven days.
④ Wage and welfare
Partners should comply with all wage-related laws covering the minimum wage workers and the legally defined welfare and provide the employees with wage payment criteria through wage statements according to the local laws. Pursuant to the local laws, workers should be compensated for the extra time they spent working at a higher rate than they get paid for normal works.
In addition, if needed during the hiring period, every worker should be provided with clear and understandable information on paper regarding their wage, welfare, and other working conditions.
⑤ Humanitarian respect
Partners should respect all its employees and should never engage in overly brutal or non-humanitarian actions such as sexual harassment, punishment, use of mental/physical force, violent language, and unreasonable restriction at work. For this purpose, partners should clearly define the punishment procedures and enforce and announce them.
⑥ Prohibition on discrimination
Regarding hiring practices such as promotion, compensation, education/training and so on, Partners should use the worker's ability as basis for hiring decisions rather than race, skin color, age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnic group, handicap, pregnancy, religion, political preferences, union membership, nationality, marriage, and health (ex. HIV/AIDS/pregnancy, etc.). Except when required by local laws or for the safety of the worksite, Partners can never demand medical examination that can be used as basis for discrimination against workers or when hiring candidates.
⑦ Freedom of labor movement
Partners should respect the rights of workers to form a union in a peaceful, reasonable way by complying with all the local laws that set forth the rights of employees. Every employee has the right to form an organization legally, join it, and take the necessary actions, and partners should respect employees’ rights to bargain collectively. Workers and the workers' representative should be able to communicate openly to the management about the working conditions without fear of threats, menace, or torture.
2. Hygiene & safety
For consistent quality and improved productivity, partners should design a safe process/working environment, realize that actions to guarantee the safety/hygiene of workers are mandatory, and cooperate with Amore Pacific in order to implement a safe and healthy working environment according to local laws and rules. In addition, partners should make their best efforts for improving the hygienic condition of the community as well as the business premises.
① Occupational safety
Partners should take preventive measures to remove physical threats and risks ahead of time and prevent accidents and occupational diseases. Such risks should be controlled through design, engineering and administrative control, preventive maintenance, safe work procedures, and consistent safety training. Consistent safety training includes emergency response procedures, method of using facilities, and process/work safety guides. If it is not possible to control risks properly by using such tools, then workers should be provided with proper personal protection tools. In addition, there should be a communication channel wherein employees can talk freely to the management board upon discovering industrial safety-related problems.
② Preparation for emergency
Partners should assess potential emergency such as natural disasters, national emergency, and human disasters ahead of time and prepare a response system. They should establish an emergency response plan including reporting, notice, evacuation procedures, and recovery plans and provide periodic training and education so that workers can minimize loss due to emergency. In addition, they should be able to respond immediately to emergency situations through implementing adequate evacuation facilities, fire detectors and extinguishers.
③ Industrial disasters and diseases
Partners should establish procedures and systems for preventing, managing, tracking, and reporting industrial disasters and vocational diseases. Such involves encouraging reports by employees on their physical abnormality and classification and recording of injury and disease, providing the necessary treatment and conducting case studies, and taking the necessary actions to remove the cause and then promoting the return of employees to the worksite.
④ Worksite hygiene
Partners should assess, evaluate, and manage employees' exposures to chemical, physical, and biological risks. Using technical or administrative controllers, partners should prevent their employees from being exposed to such risks excessively. If it is not possible to control risks properly by using such tools, then workers should be provided with proper and well-repaired personal protection tools.
⑤ Physical overwork
Partners should assess, evaluate, and manage employees' exposure to the risk of physical labor. Such physical labor includes manual works as well as lifting heavy objects or repeatedly lifting and lowering objects, standing for a long time, and performing assembly works requiring repetitions or considerable use of physical strength. Partners are advised to improve the process or implement job rotation or stretching so that musculoskeletal disorders can be avoided.
⑥ Maintaining the safety of machine facilities
Partners should evaluate the safety issues of the manufacturing or other facilities and provide physical protections, safety devices, and firewall and perform proper repair in case any of the facilities is likely to cause injury to the workers. In addition, the facilities should acquire sufficient reliability through periodic facility maintenance and repairs.
⑦ Hygiene, food, and residence
Partners should provide its employees with clean toilets, water, hygienic food, storage, and kitchen. In addition, the dorm for employees should be kept clean and safe. A proper environment should be established by providing proper exits, heating and air vent facilities, proper personal space, and reasonable entry/exit rights.
⑧ Hygiene & safety training
Partners should provide workers with proper hygiene and safety training. In addition, information related to health and safety should be placed in a noticeable location within the business premises.
3. Environmental protection
Partners should make its best efforts to minimize the negative impacts of the manufacturing process on the environment and the community. They should comply with environmental laws and rules such as chemical materials and waste management and discarding, recycling, and industrial water management and reusing, greenhouse gas and air pollutants discharge control. In addition, partners should implement, document, and execute an environment management system according to ISO 14001 and other international standards in order to assess, control, and reduce the critical environmental issues caused by business activities. If any other contracts require the environmental criteria necessary for Amore Pacific's product design and production, such should be observed as well.
① Environmental approval/license and reporting
Partners should acquire and maintain the required environment approval and license items (ex.: reporting discharge/prevention facility installation/operation/alteration) and reflect the latest revisions at all times. They should also comply with the operation and reporting requirements necessary for approval and licenses.
② Pollution prevention and reduced use of resource
Partners should adopt various methods such as production/maintenance process and facility efficiency improvement as well as use and recycling of raw materials to reduce the source of pollution and improve the efficiency of natural resource use.
③ Toxic material
Partners should comply with the environmental and quality management criteria; if pollutants are discharged to the environment, partners should assess the compounds or other materials causing risks and manage the safe handling, movement, use, recycling, reuse, and processing of such materials. In addition, they should comply with local laws and rules that regulate or prohibit the use and handling of specific material.
④ Solid wastes and wastewater
If deemed necessary by the relevant laws and regulations, Partners should identify, monitor, control, and process the solid wastes and wastewater generated in the industrial process and hygienic facilities during operation and take the necessary actions to reduce the amount of such. In addition, partners should always monitor the efficiency of wastewater processing.
⑤ Air pollution
If required by the relevant laws and regulations, all volatile organic chemicals, softener, corrosives, fine powder, ozone-depleting chemicals, and combustion by-products generated during the process should be assessed, controlled, and monitored in terms of characteristics before being discharged. They should be processed and managed according to the local laws before being discharged.
⑥ Contained material regulation and proper displays
Partners should comply with laws and regulations related to prohibition or restriction on the use of specific materials including recycling or processing labels. All partners should comply with the latest toxic material management criteria of Amore Pacific.
⑦ Rainwater management
Partners should systematically prevent pollution of rainwater. In addition, partners should prevent inflow of pollutants caused by leaks of chemicals and illegal discharge into the rainwater pipe.
⑧ Energy consumption and greenhouse gas discharge
Partners should assess the amount of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at the company and business premises step by step. In addition, partners should seek and apply an effective way to minimize energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions as well as improve energy efficiency.
⑨ Biodiversity
Partners should remove the cause of significant reduction or loss of biodiversity in areas related to operation or near the business premises and contribute to the maintenance of proper biological ecology groups. If biodiversity is likely to be reduced significantly or extinct, then partners should cooperate with the country, GO/NGO, and local community to take aggressive actions to prevent loss or reduction of biodiversity. In addition, they should monitor and comply with regulations related to biodiversity in the region where the raw materials are bought or produced.
⑩ Palm oil and its raw materials
Natural forests and natural ecosystems of high conservation value or peatlands must not be converted to agriculture, farms, or anything that involves significant deforestation or destruction, and efforts must be made for the long-term protection and conservation of natural forests and ecosystems.It is necessary to comply with local laws regarding land rights, use of natural resources, and rights of indigenous peoples and communities. The use or transfer of land must be conducted in compliance with the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
⑪ Environmental communication
Partners should evaluate the level of impacts on the environment when performing new business in advance and establish an environment protection plan accordingly. In addition, by consistently monitoring the changes in the environmental regulations, they should prevent any possibility of violation of the environmental policy ahead of time. Any environmental disputes arising during business execution should be adjusted properly within the scope of the relevant laws and regulations.
4. Ethical management
For business site operation, our partners' management activities must fully comply with all the local laws and rules; Amore Pacific requires its partners to maintain the highest level of ethical standards.
① Business Integrity
Partners should maintain the highest level of integrity when trading with other companies. Partners should never engage in illegal acts such as corruption, extortion, embezzlement, bribery, and giving gifts as well as providing money or other profits to others in order to influence their decision making. They should never provide or receive bribes for gaining illegal or unfair profits and should execute monitoring and surveillance procedures to prevent corruption and gain legal autonomy.
② Financial Transparency
Partners should execute transparent commercial trade for all businesses and trading and accurately record the details of such. In addition, partners should periodically provide transparent financial information for the shareholders and other parties concerned and pay attention to make sure that their business is not used for trading money with crimes. None of the financial information is used to support internal transactions.
③ Fair trade
Partners should comply with the fair trade law of the country where it does business and should never engage in unfair trading with other companies by taking advantage of its superiority. In addition, partners should never engage in official or unofficial agreement or discussions for collusions or which have effects by exchanging information about the competing company's prices, products, sales conditions, profits or margin, market shares, or distribution method or using such acquired information. Illegal information acquisition from the competing company or verbal attacks on the competing company or receipt of money or service from them is prohibited; if confidential information is illegally collected or used, such should immediately be reported to the management board.
④ Inclusive Growth
To create a healthy enterprise ecology, Partners should aggressively participate in mutual growth activities and make its best efforts in expanding the supporting program such as payment, funds, and technical advice from the company to other cooperating companies.
⑤ Conflict of Interest
While discussing the contract or executing the duties, partners should avoid acts or relationships that are in conflict with the company's interests. If there is any vested interest that can affect a person's decision and action (e.g., family or relative in competing companies or trade partners with vested interest), employees should report it to the company for proper review.
⑥ Data disclosures
Partners should record and disclose the information about management activities, outcomes, and financial structure according to the data disclosure act and rules and business practices in the industry. Falsification and wrong input of records about the condition or practice within the supply network are never allowed.
⑦ Intellectual property protection
Partners respect the intellectual property rights and transfer technology and know-how in such a way that the rights are protected. In addition, partners should safely protect the data of Amore Pacific.
⑧ Personal data protection
Partners should acquire and own minimal information about company management and protect the personal data of everyone related to company management (including partner, customer, consumer, and employee) at a reasonable level. Personal data should be stored, processed, transmitted, or shared, according to the Personal Data Protection Act. In addition, employees should be trained and educated periodically on protecting personal data.
⑨ Animal testing
Except for special cases designated by domestic laws, our partners should do not distribute or sell cosmetic products tested on animals or raw materials obtained from animals.
If animal testing is performed in case of exception as designated by the law, then the testing process should not violate the principles of animal testing according to the animal protection law, and the most ethical actions possible should be taken to minimize the pain and discomfort of laboratory animals.
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Inquiry and complaint channels
Any inquiry or complaint regarding the items in these guidelines should be directed to Sustainable Innovation Team. All the reports should be handled according to strict and fair procedures. Reporters can choose to maintain anonymity, and they will be protected against unfair retaliations. -
Mandatory compliance
Partners should demand the submission of data and records with the company-approved agent's signature and verification at the site to verify that a 2nd/3rd partner is fully compliant with the guidelines. The guidelines are subject to revisions as the market or social demand changes, and you should consistently discuss the revisions with partners and provide them with clear explanations.
※ Communication
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ILO International Labor Standards
http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/lang--en/index.html -
ILO Code of Practice in Safety and Health
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/cops/english/download/e000013.pdf -
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
http://www.oecd.org -
OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas
http://www.oecd.org/investment/mne/mining.html -
United Nations Global Compact
http://www.unglobalcompact.org -
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html -
ISO 14001 / 26000
http://www.iso.org -
SA8000 and SAI(Social accountability international)
http://www.sa-intl.org/
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