Modern Slavery Statement
Organisation’s structure
We are a global organisation dedicated to eradicating energy poverty and providing access to underserved communities through the provision of essential services and utilities. Our head office is in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We operate in a number of jurisdictions across the African continent, China and France.
Annual consolidated revenue
Whilst we have not yet met the annual consolidated revenue threshold that triggers the disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act 2018, we wish to voluntarily comply.
Our business
Our business on the African continent is run through autonomous ‘Next Generation Utilities’ (NGUs) in the jurisdictions in which we operate. Our supply chains are arranged around the procurement of the constituent components of our equipment, which we sell to the NGUs and third parties, mainly in China. In addition to our NGUs, we operate through a range of joint ventures, which we are aware increases risks when operating in regions where there is poor rule of law, current or past conflicts and/or limited protection of other human rights.
Each of the jurisdictions in which we have a presence has varied inherent modern slavery risks. Due to the highly globalised nature of our business, the NGUs have extended supply chains and we do operate in jurisdictions with poor records on forced labour and human trafficking.
Risk is also heightened in those areas where we operate in sectors where there is high demand for short-term and lower-skilled labour. The use of temporary labour may involve particular modern slavery risks such as debt bondage or human trafficking. We are committed to ensuring our hiring and recruitment practices are of the highest standard to counter-act these risks.
Our policies on slavery
We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery in our supply chains or in any part of our business. We have implemented bespoke policies, including a business integrity policy and procurement policy, which provide avenues for and makes clear that we expect employees to raise concerns, either anonymously or via the compliance manager, if they feel that Bboxx is in breach of its own policies or is not doing enough to actively monitor or prevent the risk of breaching our firm commitment to combat slavery and forced labour. Our policies reflect our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery does not take place anywhere in our supply chains. The senior executive and leadership team in each of the Bboxx entities is committed to actively promoting a culture of anti-slavery and anti-human trafficking.
Due diligence processes for slavery
We have systems in place to:
• Identify and assess potential risk areas in our supply chains.
• Mitigate the risk of slavery occurring in our supply chains.
• Monitor potential risk areas in our supply chains.
• Protect whistle-blowers.
Supplier adherence to our values and ethics
We have zero tolerance of slavery. To ensure all those in our supply chains and contractors comply with our values and ethics, we have in place protections against non-compliance with these principles. We also have a dedicated legal & compliance team.
Our effectiveness in combating slavery
We anticipate our operations and our supply chains are susceptible to risks of modern slavery.
We manage those risks to our organisation by maintaining consistent and high standards of due diligence and risk mitigation processes to monitor for and avoid modern slavery in all environments in which we operate in, regardless of whether the environment or the suppliers with whom we work are more or less vulnerable to modern slavery.
This modern slavery statement is made by Bboxx Ltd for the financial year ending 2021.
This statement was approved by our Board of Directors on 8 June 2022.