Peter Hyde, previously managing director of VolkerHighways, has joined Tarmac Contracting as maintenance director. Peter Hyde was managing director of Volker Highways for six years until October 2015 and was a member of the VolkerWessels UK executive committee. Before that he was managing director of highways contractor John Crowley (Maidstone) At Tarmac, part of the CRH group, he reports to Paul Fleetham, managing director of Tarmac Contracting. Andy Rowley, who has been heading the maintenance business on an interim basis, resumes his previous role as commercial director, contracting.     This article was published on 6 Sep 2016 (last updated on 6 Sep 2016). Source link

A visit to suppliers in India more than 10 years ago brought about a profound change in procurement within the UK building materials group Marshalls. This following case study is extracted from the Chartered Institute of Building’s report on modern slavery, Building a fairer system. It clearly shows that any building project can have not only embedded carbon, a concept with which we have become familiar, but also embedded blood, a concept that must now be addressed. What happens at the bottom of the supply chain should not be ignored by those at the top. Evidence presented by the CIOB report shows that Marshalls clearly stands out within the construction industry as a beacon for the way in which it has addressed this issue.     Marshalls: streamlining supply chains in quarrying and manufacturing to protect children and migrant workers Established in the UK in the 1880s, Marshalls has been manufacturing and supplying hard landscaping products to the commercial, public and consumer retail sectors for more than a century. Supplying to 60 countries, Marshalls directly employs more than 2,500 people and has 50 operational sites in the UK and several offices around the world. Marshalls became member of the Ethical Trading Initiative in 2005, signatory to the UN Global Compact in 2009 and entered the FTSE4Good Index in 2005.   The catalyst Marshalls’ natural stone products are now sourced from quarries and manufacturing plants from a narrow group of countries, most notably India, China and Vietnam. In 2005 Marshalls group marketing director Chris Harrop visited suppliers in the Rajasthan state of western India. Keen to gain a better understanding of sandstone production, he did not explain the purpose of his visit, gaining access to a wide range of facilities. Harrop was shocked at the levels of exploitation he witnessed. Children as young as six were working in the quarries and manufacturing plants. They were living in squalid conditions, and were regularly being exposed to high levels of noise, dust, vibration and dangerous activities. With parents working, sick or injured, many children were labouring not only due to poverty, but because there was no one to care for them off site. They had no access to education. Workers of all ages were at risk of exploitation and abuse, hunger and food insecurity, inadequate healthcare and contaminated water. These conditions were having a disproportionate impact upon children. “What struck me was that this was so blatant,” Harrop says. “Locally it was seen as a normal and accepted practice.”   The challenges It was clear that the causes and drivers of exploitation in the sector were complex and intertwined cultural and socio-economic factors. As a foreign buyer, Marshalls also recognised that its influence was limited: exports account for only 5 per cent of the total Indian sandstone market. “The scale of the challenge was immense. We realised that the only way forward was to bring in experts and to start working collaboratively,” Harrop says.   The approach Unaware of any existing industry initiatives to tackle such problems, Marshalls sought out best practice in other sectors. In 2005 it joined the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) – an international alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs, originally founded by British retailers. Marshalls adopted the ETI Base Code which is based on International Labour Organisation (ILO) principles and covers areas such as child and bonded labour, living wages, health and safety, discrimination and inhumane treatment. “Joining ETI was particularly useful because it helped us understand root causes of child labour,” Harrop says. “It would have been easy to throw money at a small project and give children books and clothes, but the ETI process helped us dig deeper. It showed us the importance of consulting with local communities and NGOs before forming our strategy.” “We discovered that lack of access to education was a major contributor to the problem, as were the very low wage levels, which meant that whole families had to work to survive.” Marshalls engaged the services of business and human rights consultant Elaine Mitchel-Hill that same year.   The strategy Until 2005, Marshalls had been working with several sandstone suppliers in Rajasthan. In order to drive change efficiently, the company decided to simplify procurement, forming an in-depth relationship with a single supplier. “The partner that we chose – Stone Shippers India – was by no means the largest in the market,” Harrop says. “We selected them on the basis of shared values and a commitment to quality, showing that, by doing the right thing, we could grow our business together.” He adds that a period of collaboration was necessary to build trust. “We had to create a shared vision and understanding. Instead of asking our partner for outcomes through box-ticking exercises, we wanted to establish meaningful processes and lasting change.” “For example, simply having the paperwork to check masks were being issued, and wages were being paid on time, was not enough. We had to educate people on why masks were essential safety equipment, and the impact of late wages.” Marshalls introduced a range of activities to support the supplier and the wider community including: Integrating systems. Marshalls now shares a common ERP system with Stone Shippers. Helping the supplier establish a professionally run human resources department. Forming a long term partnership with local a NGO to deliver child education, health camps, and workers’ rights education. Raising awareness of social insurance with workers. Marshalls collaborated with a local NGO on this project, providing seed funding for the scheme, which took off and became self-sustaining after three years.   Upholding Marshalls uses third party organisation Just Solutions to check that the processes agreed with suppliers are in place and being upheld. Just Solutions was chosen because of its previous experience working with the ILO and its strong local connections. “They’re forensically checking the processes and embedded behaviours,” Harrop says. “This is important because if you just send an auditor into a facility, they will only witness what is happening on one particular