Corporate Standards & Responsibilities

Our brand and business activities touch many people's lives, including consumers, healthcare professionals, employees and the community. We know that a responsible approach to business is essential in order to maintain this trust and confidence.

We at Seven Seas are committed to moving the business towards greater sustainability across all our economic, social and environmental dimensions.

Seven Seas are committed to ensuring that we are a ‘socially responsible’ company and take our commitment to the environment and the communities in
which we operate seriously.

We define our social responsibility into four key areas:

• Marketplace –Responsibility to our customers, suppliers and partners as a leading healthcare company.
• Workplace – Commitment to what we regard as our most valuable resource: our employees.
• Health & Safety – Committed to ensuring our workplace is safe and injury free.
• Environment – Doing all we can to reduce our impact on the environment.
• Community – Ensuring that our site is an active partner in the community in which we operate.

We are committed to building a culture where our employees, visitors , suppliers and contractors recognise our commitment to ensuring that our site operates successfully in the community and that we achieve our goal as a company of long-term sustainable success.

MARKETPLACE

As a leading company, we are committed to the highest standards of business practices towards our visitors, suppliers and partners.Our site and facilities will, where reasonably practical, be accessible to all, including those with disabilities or special needs. All areas of our business will operate a healthy and safe environment for our visitors, employees, and contractors.

• We are committed to the personal safety of all visitors
• We are committed to appropriate investment in our site.
• Our purchasing department always consider ethical and environmental obligations in all activities.
• Ethical and environmental questionnaires are a requirement within our tenders and the results are used as part of the decision making process when selecting suppliers
• We will not purchase from any organisation whose products are produced with the exploitation of child labour, paying an unfair wage in poor working conditions or any other violation of worker’s rights.
• We are committed to honesty and transparency in our communication with customers and we adhere to industry best-practice in advertising and other marketing activity.

WORKPLACE

We recognise the value and importance of our employees and managing talent within our company is a priority. Our employment policies not only comply with all relevant legislation, but seek to go beyond that in order to ensure that the working environment within all areas of our business embraces diversity, offers fairness and equality of opportunity in every respect.

The key employment policies that we refer to include the following:

Recruitment
Applicants for employment within our business will be assessed fairly, regardless of race, gender, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation or religious belief. They will be treated with honesty and respect at every stage of the recruitment process.

Training and development
Appropriate training will be offered to all employees in order to assist and empower them within their daily work.

Remuneration
We will pay a fair wage for a fair day’s work.

Diversity and equal opportunities
All staff will be treated with dignity and respect regardless of their origin or background. We embrace diversity and it is viewed as a strength within our business.

Anti-discrimination
We have robust anti-discrimination policies and any allegation of discrimination is taken extremely seriously and dealt with accordingly.

Family friendly working policies
We recognise the importance of all our employees, including those who are working parents and we value and uphold the rights of working parents under
current legislation.

Talent management
We are keen to harness the potential of all of our employees and we actively encourage and support all those who demonstrate talent and wish to progress within our organisation. We offer a management training programme and training courses aimed specifically at those who wish to develop new skills and a robust succession plan.

Employee consultation and internal communications
Communication with our employees is a priority and we actively seek opportunities to engage with our staff. We welcome feedback from our employees and listen carefully to suggestions.

HEALTH & SAFETY

The Health, Safety and Welfare of our employees is vital and we will make the appropriate investment in equipment and training to ensure that accidents and injuries are avoided. We will ensure that we comply with all applicable health, safety and welfare legal requirements to ensure that we provide a safe, pleasant and injury risk free working environment. Part of our sites recognition is our continual membership to professional bodies such as the British Safety Council.

ENVIRONMENT

Seven Seas actively seek ways to reduce our impact on the environment and we will work with suppliers, partners and our team-members to ensure that we all understand the environmental impact of our operations.

Seven Seas Environmental Policy

Energy consumption
Energy consumption is the largest environmental impact of our business and we actively explore and implement as appropriate, any initiative that could reduce our energy consumption. For example, low energy lighting, regular boiler efficiency audits, maximum water temperatures and movement sensor controlled lighting are just some of our current initiatives.

Waste management
As a site we have targeted ourselves with reducing waste that goes to landfill and are committed to increasing recycling levels year on year. Our waste streams are segregated on site, with paper, glass, plastics, cardboard, and metals all recycled. We continue to work with all our suppliers to reduce excess packaging and increase the use of recycled cardboard wherever practicable.

Responsible purchasing
Wherever practical, we purchase products made from renewable and ethically sound sources. We aim to exceed the minimum standards our business is required to achieve by environmental legislation and set our Managers challenging environmental targets to meet. We recognise that people are key to our environmental success and all employees are encouraged to be environmentally responsible through regular training, instruction and awareness raising activities.

This policy is regularly monitored by the Merck group and updated to reflect new initiatives and processes that can further drive our ability to reduce our impact on the environment both locally and nationally.