Our Environmental, Ethical Trading and Community Promise
At Simply Paving, we believe we have an ethical and social responsibility to ensure that the products we supply to you are made and sourced in such a way that is highly concerned with the implications to the environment and to the people involved in this process.
Supplier Information
Bradstone is part of Aggregate Industries UK Ltd. Aggregate Industries is the first company in the world to achieve a BES 6001:2008 Responsible Sourcing Certificate from BRE Global. Products are assessed on:
- Quality management
- Environmental management
- Health and safety management
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Minimising raw material usage
- Labour practice
- Biodiversity
- Community engagement.
All Bradstone's manufacturing facilities are covered by BS EN ISO 9001 certification for product quality and service. Bradstone block paving products are also manufactured to, and in accordance with, BS EN 1338. Each of the Bradstone manufacturing locations is certified to ISO 14001 for environmental management systems and 18001 for occupational health and safety. All dimensions quoted in this brochure are nominal and are for guidance only. Actual sizes may vary. Our products also conform to European harmonised standards for CE marking.
Ethical Trading and Community Policy
At Aggregate Industries we are aware of our social responsibilities in trading with organisations around the world. In this light we support the ETI Base Code. We have drawn up a policy and code of practice to ensure that we fulfil our obligations and responsibilities. As a minimum this shall include suppliers' compliance to local laws and internationally recognised minimum standards. We will ensure that all our suppliers meet full requirements of our policy:
- Employees are given equal opportunities
- Wages are paid in accordance with local laws to maintain a standard of living
- Child labour is not used
- Hours of working and working conditions are maintained to a safe standard
- No employment shall be bonded nor forced, with the rights to collective bargaining and freedom of association respected
- Intimidation by violence, threat, abuse or physical discipline shall not occur
- Employment provided shall be subject to conditions of local laws
- We shall encourage our suppliers to embrace a policy of continuous improvement beyond minimum standards It is our intention to help our suppliers to comply with this policy in order to maintain long-term benefits for all parties. This policy will be implemented and performance will be monitored against the code of practice. Deliberate and persistent failure to comply with this policy and the code of practice could result in a breach of contract and result in the cessation of trading.
Environment Policy
Aggregate Industries recognises the importance of our commitment to mitigate and manage our impacts by ensuring our environmental performance continually improves by implementing an effective, certified Environmental Management System (EMS) that is appropriate to our activities.
To support this Aggregate Industries will ensure that:
- The senior management of the business demonstrate leadership on environmental management and lead on the implementation and use of an effective EMS to manage risks and take advantage of opportunities for continuous improvement.
- We ensure that the EMS supports the company's environmental performance by providing a framework for setting environmental objectives and targets to drive continuous improvement.
- We assess and measure our environmental impacts and develop and implement effective mitigation plans and controls to monitor, minimise or prevent pollution.
- We encourage analysis of impacts through the assessment of the life cycle of our products and services to be able to improve through design resource efficiency and enable recovery.
- We make strategic efforts to reduce our impact on climate change through the development, manufacture or promotion of innovative and sustainable products and solutions. We reduce carbon emissions through optimising the use of energy and promoting energy efficiency, and, where practicable, the use of renewable energy sources and energy recovery.
- We reduce the use of non-renewable resources and, where it is safe as well as technically and economically relevant, replace these with substitute raw materials, alternative fuels and biomass.
- We improve resource efficiency through reuse, recovery and/or recycling of waste materials in our own production processes and, where feasible, minimise the generation of any hazardous and other waste, and dispose of waste using safe and responsible methods.
- We minimize our impact on water resources by reducing water withdrawal through the use of recycling, the promotion of water efficient practices and a responsible management of water discharges.
- We implement biodiversity management plans for all active extraction sites and work to protect, restore and enhance biodiversity habitats and species on and around our sites
- We develop rehabilitation and restoration plans that take into account the needs and expectations of our stakeholders and, where feasible and relevant, foster wildlife habitat creation and contribute to the conservation of species.
- We assess and appropriately mitigate, our impacts on surrounding communities in regards to fugitive dust, noise, vibrations and traffic.
- We encourage the development and adoption of environmentally friendly technologies. We employ operating procedures to reduce the exposure of our employees and our communities to environmental, health and safety risks
- We assess the sustainability credentials of our suppliers and contractors and we promote the adoption of responsible sourcing principles amongst our customers, suppliers and contractors.
- We comply with our compliance obligations which includes rules, local laws, regulations, internal procedures and relevant industry code of practices.
- We conduct environmental due diligence in connection with acquisitions and divestments.
- All employees have a responsibility for ensuring the company's environmental management systems and procedures are implemented and complied with at a local level. We provide training for our employees, to ensure they understand their role and responsibilities and their contribution to environmental protection and performance.
- We maintain effective communications with our stakeholders, encourage dialogue and will investigate, monitor and report on our environmental performance.