employees with a workplace that protects human rights and is free of harassment and abuse, and condemns any form of forced labour. For the specific area of modern slavery, ECCO has an official Modern Slavery Policy, which is considered an integrated part of ECCO’s CoC. The CoC not only applies to the ECCO Group and its employees, but also to all external suppliers and other business partners. The Group Corporate Responsibility (GCR) department is responsible for preparing policies and procedures that support the CoC and its implementation. The Management of ECCO’s business units (BU) is responsible for implementing the Group policies and procedures. To ensure proper implementation, environment, health and safety officers and the HR and supply chain departments at ECCO BUs have a close collaboration with ECCO’s GCR department. To learn more about ECCO policies relating to Modern Slavery and other areas of its CoC, please visit: https://group.ecco.com/en/responsibility. DUE DILIGENCE PROCESSES IN RELATION TO MODERN SLAVERY AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING Human rights due diligence is important to help ECCO identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for how ECCO addresses its human rights risks. ECCO’s approach is based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which state that enterprises are responsible for respecting human rights wherever they operate, and that it exists over and above compliance with national laws and regulations. ECCO addresses human rights risks, e.g. by conducting pre-screenings of potential new suppliers to ensure compliance with ECCO’s human and labour standards. In 2020, ECCO continued its expanding focus on these subjects in its pre-screenings system, even though COVID-19 challenged the work. Pre-screenings of new suppliers consist of self-assessments and an on-site evaluation or CoC audit of the potential suppliers. Pre-screenings are currently conducted of all new suppliers to ECCO’s shoe production and finished leather goods. ECCO conducted 30 pre-screenings in 2020, of which 22 included a full CoC audit. The majority of ECCO’s human and labour rights due diligence comes from its comprehensive compliance system, where CoC audits of suppliers are conducted regularly by ECCO’s internal CoC auditors or external auditors from Bureau Veritas, with whom ECCO has a strategic collaboration. In 2020, ECCO conducted 101 CoC supplier audits at existing suppliers, down from 210 in 2019. The decrease is due to COVID-19, as restrictions on travels and local visits made many planned audits impossible. ECCO’s long-term goal is to conduct approximately 250 CoC audits per year, which ECCO finds appropriate, taking its size and amount of suppliers into consideration. To learn more about the history and content of the audit programme, please visit: http://group.ecco.com/en/responsibility. OPERATES IN 89 COUNTRIES 2,180 ECCO SHOPS 6 FACTORIES 4 TANNERIES
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