Code of Conduct

1.  Objective / Purpose

 Due to the Act on Cor­po­rate Due Dili­gence Oblig­a­tions for the pre­ven­tion of human rights Vio­la­tions in Sup­ply Chains (“Liefer­ket­ten­sorgfalt­spflicht­enge­setz”), applic­a­ble as of Jan­u­ary 2023, and an EU Direc­tive on the sup­ply chain to be expect­ed in the future, MAGNESIA is increas­ing­ly request­ed to deal with min­i­mum require­ments on human rights, work­ing con­di­tions and the envi­ron­ment in the coun­tries of origin/supplier coun­tries. Cus­tomers expect com­pli­ance with such stan­dards in the coun­tries of ori­gin of the goods to be con­trolled by the sub­se­quent par­tic­i­pants in the sup­ply chain, and leg­is­la­tor expects efforts to be direct­ed towards this. 

 The sec­tor of human rights, work­ing con­di­tions and envi­ron­ment (sec­tion 3 A and B of this Code of Con­duct) is cov­ered by the Ger­man Due Dili­gence Leg­is­la­tion. With a view to com­pet­i­tive behav­iour and sus­tain­abil­i­ty (sec­tion 3 C and D), busi­ness part­ners have been request­ing infor­ma­tion, con­fir­ma­tion or com­mit­ments for quite some time, so those top­ics has also been includ­ed in this Code of Conduct.

2.  Objectives according to international conventions

Human rights includ­ing fun­da­men­tal labour stan­dards
 (in par­tic­u­lar: Con­ven­tions and pro­to­cols (ilo.org) No. 29, 87,98,100,105, 111,138,182), as well as

Fair and favourable work­ing con­di­tions 
 (in par­tic­u­lar: ICESCR = UN Social Covenant Art.7)

Envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion
 Mina­ma­ta Con­ven­tion — pro­tec­tion against mer­cury emis­sions, Stock­holm Con­ven­tion — pro­tec­tion against the neg­a­tive effects of per­sis­tent organ­ic pol­lu­tants. — pro­tec­tion against the neg­a­tive effects of per­sis­tent organ­ic pollutants.

Prop­er com­pet­i­tive behav­iour 
 (in par­tic­u­lar: OECD Guide­lines for Multi­na­tion­al Enter­pris­es and UN Anti-Cor­rup­tion Regulations)

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty
 (17 UN Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs), inso­far as these are list­ed as require­ments and cri­te­ria under sec­tion 4 below).

3. Requirements for suppliers/manufacturers

A. Human rights, minimum labour standards, working conditions

The supplier/manufacturer ensures that the fol­low­ing is prac­tised in his com­pa­ny and estab­lish­es a sys­tem at man­age­ment lev­el for mon­i­tor­ing, receiv­ing com­plaints and rem­e­dy­ing violations: 

• Liv­ing wages are paid that are at least in line with nation­al legal require­ments or indus­try stan­dard remu­ner­a­tion and allow work­ers and their fam­i­lies to live in dig­ni­ty under decent liv­ing and hous­ing conditions.
• Com­pli­ance with work­ing hours: The work­ing hours and break times pro­vid­ed for under ILO Con­ven­tions and applic­a­ble nation­al law, as well as reg­u­la­tions on work­ing at night, are observed.
• Safe and hygien­ic work­places: There is a safe and hygien­ic work­ing envi­ron­ment in com­pli­ance with and in strictest obser­vance of the nation­al offi­cial reg­u­la­tions applic­a­ble to the com­pa­ny. Employ­ees are reg­u­lar­ly instruct­ed and trained on occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty measures.
• Health-endan­ger­ing and haz­ardous activ­i­ties: The han­dling of sub­stances haz­ardous to health is only car­ried out by spe­cial­ly qual­i­fied per­son­nel in com­pli­ance with nation­al regulations.
• Employ­ment of minors: Employ­ment of peo­ple under 15 years of age does not take place. Health-endan­ger­ing or haz­ardous activ­i­ties may only be car­ried out by spe­cial­ly trained employ­ees who are at least 18 years old. 
• Forced and com­pul­so­ry labour, i.e. activ­i­ties that are car­ried out under the threat of a seri­ous evil and/or the with­hold­ing of per­son­al offi­cial doc­u­ments, are pro­hib­it­ed. This also applies to the use of non-affil­i­at­ed personnel.
• The free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion and the right to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing of work­ers shall be respected. 
• Data pro­tec­tion: Com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble pri­va­cy and data pro­tec­tion laws to pro­tect the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of the data and the rights of their sup­pli­ers, cus­tomers and employees.
• Pro­hi­bi­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion: Work­ers shall be treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and respect. It is ensured that no one is dis­crim­i­nat­ed or sub­ject­ed to any risk due to race, skin colour, eth­nic ori­gin, nation­al­i­ty, gen­der, age, dis­abil­i­ty, polit­i­cal opin­ion, mem­ber­ship in a trade union or com­pa­ra­ble inter­est group. In par­tic­u­lar, the pay­ment of unequal remu­ner­a­tion for work of equal val­ue is regard­ed as unequal treatment.
• Pro­hi­bi­tion of inter­nal mea­sures: Work­ers shall not be dis­ci­plined or dis­crim­i­nat­ed for claim­ing rights under the ILO Stan­dards, or for com­plain­ing about vio­la­tions to the man­age­ment, author­i­ties or advo­ca­cy groups.

B. Environmental protection

The supplier/manufacturer shall ensure, through appro­pri­ate inter­nal and organ­i­sa­tion­al mea­sures, includ­ing reg­u­lar mon­i­tor­ing, ver­i­fi­ca­tion and doc­u­men­ta­tion, that in his company

• emis­sions of mer­cury are pre­vent­ed or reduced in accor­dance with nation­al leg­is­la­tion, using best avail­able tech­niques and best envi­ron­men­tal practices, 
• bio­di­ver­si­ty is con­served and used sus­tain­ably, waters are pro­tect­ed, defor­esta­tion is com­bat­ed and land use is managed. 
• chem­i­cals list­ed as per­sis­tent organ­ic pol­lu­tants in the annex­es to the actu­al applic­a­ble ver­sion of the Stock­holm Con­ven­tion, are not stored, used, or applied in pro­duc­tion, in accor­dance with nation­al leg­is­la­tion relat­ed thereto, 
• nation­al leg­is­la­tion for the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment is observed and imple­ment­ed in indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties and ware­hous­es of the manufacturer/supplier, in accor­dance with the state of the art avail­able at the time, to pre­vent envi­ron­men­tal dam­age from all forms of emis­sions and effluents, 
• inter­na­tion­al­ly defined cli­mate goals are observed and imple­ment­ed in accor­dance with nation­al legal pro­vi­sions, and suit­able indus­tri­al facil­i­ties exist for this pur­pose or are retro­fit­ted accord­ing­ly, based on suit­able inter­nal plan­ning and specifications.

C. Proper competitive behaviour

The supplier/manufacturer shall ensure through appro­pri­ate inter­nal mea­sures and pro­ce­dur­al instruc­tions in com­pli­ance with applic­a­ble nation­al law, also the mem­bers of his man­age­ment, that in his company

• gen­er­al­ly applic­a­ble rules of fair com­pe­ti­tion are observed, and the cor­re­spond­ing nation­al legal pro­vi­sions are com­plied with, 
• price agree­ments and agree­ments on con­di­tions between com­peti­tors are avoided, 
• any form of influ­ence by third par­ties on business/commercial or strate­gic deci­sions, e.g. through bribery or the grant­i­ng of advan­tages, is rejected, 
• any form of influ­ence on third par­ties, e.g. through bribery or the grant­i­ng of advan­tages, is refrained from. 

D. Sustainability

The supplier/manufacturer shall ensure that 

• the pur­chase of raw mate­ri­als for pro­duc­tion is car­ried out in a resource-con­serv­ing man­ner and in com­pli­ance with the applic­a­ble nation­al regulations,
• the use of raw mate­ri­als and oper­at­ing mate­ri­als is designed in such a way that unnec­es­sary mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion is avoided, 
• oper­a­tional facil­i­ties and pro­duc­tion process­es are designed in such a way that the con­sump­tion of ener­gy and water is reduced as much as pos­si­ble with regard to the “envi­ron­men­tal footprint”, 
• envi­ron­men­tal emis­sions are avoid­ed as far as pos­si­ble in accor­dance with the state of the art, 
• waste mate­ri­als are recy­cled as far as pos­si­ble in accor­dance with nation­al regulations.

4. Verification of compliance with the Code of Conduct requirements

Upon request by MAGNESIA, the supplier/manufacturer proves com­pli­ance with the require­ments under sec­tion 3 A to D by

• pro­vid­ing request­ed documents,
• pro­duc­ing any required documentation, 
• pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion and, if nec­es­sary, prepar­ing reports, 
• mak­ing reli­able statements, 
• allow­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion in the form of questionnaires, 
• allow­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to be car­ried out, 
• allow­ing audits and inspec­tions to be car­ried out in pres­ence or by remote communication, 

to the extent nec­es­sary for MAGNESIA to meet the infor­ma­tion require­ments in the sup­ply chain. 

5. Remedial measures to be taken by the supplier/manufacturer

If MAGNESIA becomes aware, from the doc­u­men­ta­tion and infor­ma­tion or through a third par­ty, of cir­cum­stances that indi­cate non-com­pli­ance or insuf­fi­cient imple­men­ta­tion of the require­ments referred to in sec­tion 3 A to D, MAGNESIA shall request the supplier/manufacturer to take reme­di­al action and shall require evidence/reports of actions taken. 

6. Procedure in case of non-compliance with this Code of Conduct

MAGNESIA assess­es the supplier/manufacturer on the basis of an inter­nal assess­ment scheme e.g. tak­ing into account 

• the pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence with the supplier/manufacturer with regard to com­pli­ance and imple­men­ta­tion of this Code of Con­duct so far,
• the nature of the areas cov­ered by sec­tion 3 A to D, 
• the past expe­ri­ences with cor­rec­tive actions required under sec­tion 3, 
• the infor­ma­tion and state­ments obtained under sec­tion 4, 
• the exis­tence or absence of the con­fir­ma­tion required under sec­tion 7, 

in order to deter­mine, whether a future coop­er­a­tion is pos­si­ble or whether the exist­ing coop­er­a­tion should be dis­con­tin­ued or ter­mi­nat­ed prematurely. 

7. Confirmation from the supplier/manufacturer 

Upon request by MAGNESIA, the supplier/manufacturer con­firms in a legal­ly bind­ing man­ner that it is com­mit­ted to the objec­tives of this Code of Con­duct as stat­ed in Sec­tion 2, meets the require­ments stat­ed in Sec­tion 3, com­plies with the require­ments stat­ed in Sec­tion 4, takes all nec­es­sary cor­rec­tive actions as stat­ed in Sec­tion 5 and has tak­en note of the pro­ce­dure described in Sec­tion 6.

Please click here to pro­ceed to our Code of Con­duct con­fir­ma­tion and sup­pli­er questionnaire. 

Valid from 18.04.2023