This statement covers the activities of the following automotive groups and the retail of the associated brands:
- Barons Automotive Limited: Automotive retail, service and repair of the BMW and MINI brands
- Hodgson Automotive Limited: Automotive retail, service and repair of the Audi brand
- Think One Limited: Automotive retail, service and repair of the Ford brand
Spire Automotive Limited: Automotive retail, service and repair of the Audi, Jaguar, Land Rover, SEAT and Volkswagen brands
- Beadles Group Limited: Automotive retail, service and repair of the Jaguar, Land Rover, Volkswagen, Skoda, Toyota and Kia brands
- Barons Autostar Limited: Automotive retail, service and repair of the Mercedes-Benz and SMART brands
Reference to Group 1 Automotive within this policy covers the above entities.
We are determined to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in any of our supply chains. Most of our supply chains provide the supply of vehicles and parts from the international automotive manufacturers we represent as detailed above.
These lower risk manufacturer supply chains constitute the majority of our total supply chain. We are pleased to note that most of these manufacturer suppliers uphold their own standards of anti-slavery and anti-human trafficking compliance and some of our partner manufacturers are involved in ethical committees. For example, the Ford manufacturer are members of the Responsible Business Alliance, a non-profit coalition that promotes high standards in human rights, safety and security, environmental protection and business ethics. We review the statements from our manufacturer suppliers and the steps they are taking in relation to modern slavery and we will continue to do so regularly.
We also identify the following services within our supply chains:
- Cleaning services;
- Valeting services;
- Office stationery suppliers;
- Coffee suppliers;
- Printer and copier suppliers;
- Promotional branded items suppliers;
- Bodyshop contractors;
- Building contractors; and
- Recruitment agencies.
These non-manufacturer suppliers comprise a very small proportion of our supply chain, but we consider them to be at higher risk of potential breaches of the modern slavery obligations.
We communicate our modern slavery statement through our supply chain compliance programme that consists of:
- A procurement process expecting all high risk non-manufacturer service providers and contractors to perform their services in accordance with our anti-slavery policy; and
- Undertaking continual confirmation procedures with our high risk non-manufacturer suppliers to ensure compliance with our policies.
We will continue to consider whether it is proportionate to take further steps to ensure these non-manufacturer high risk suppliers comply with our values on anti-slavery and human trafficking in light of the level of risk they are considered to pose and the degree of influence that we may have over them.