Eliminate child labor
Our goal is the elimination of child labor in the Company’s value chain.
Our commitment
At Swedish Match, we have a special focus on child labor and child risks. Swedish Match does not consent to child labor anywhere in our value chain. We are dependent on raw material from agriculture and forestry for our products. According to the ILO1), approximately 152 million children are involved in child labor worldwide; 71 percent of these children are found in agriculture. With tobacco being an agricultural product, there is a significant risk of child labor. The issue of child labor is extensive and complex; it requires commitment from us as well as from farmers, suppliers, governments and other manufacturers.
We respect universal human rights and support internationally proclaimed human rights conventions and guidelines. We recognize the role we play in respecting these rights and in making sure that they are upheld and respected for the people impacted by our business, in the areas where we operate and from which we source materials.
Assessing risk related to business integrity and human rights
We assigned external expertise to refine our previous assessment of risk related to business integrity and human rights in our value chain in 2016. This risk assessment forms the basis for our efforts to assess and mitigate specific risk in dialogue with prioritized suppliers. The risk landscape in relation to all suppliers of direct material was reassessed based on manufacturing country or origin of raw material, known category and industry risks2) as well as annual level of spending. A more in-depth social impact assessment was pursued at industry-level, to identify potential and specific human and labor rights risks for a limited number of higher risk categories of direct material.
Out of our 118 significant suppliers of direct material3) a total of 70 suppliers4) were classified as high risk based on industry risk or country of origin. The majority of resulting high risk suppliers in this assessment are suppliers of raw tobacco, the remaining part are suppliers of lighter components or finished products sourced in Asia and Africa. The results confirm our previous focus on suppliers of raw tobacco in our efforts to manage our supply chain more sustainably. The results also confirm our continued focus on child labor and child rights, with child labor and women and child risks rated as the top specific human rights risks, followed by forced labor/debt bondage, hazardous exposure to chemicals and limited access to safe drinking water/sanitation, for the tobacco category.
ECLT Foundation
Swedish Match is a member of and represented on the board of the ECLT Foundation – Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing. This involvement provides us with a platform to continuously keep the issue high up on the agenda, exchange experience and knowledge within this field, and follow projects to tackle the issue on the ground. As an ECLT Foundation member, Swedish Match has signed a Pledge of Commitment (the Pledge). The Pledge is a sector-wide agreement to uphold robust policy on child labor, conduct due diligence and provide for remediation consistent with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights. This action reinforces our policies and practices and aligns with international best practices established by the International Labor Organization (ILO). For more information on ECLT Foundation and the Pledge, see the ECLT Foundation’s website, www.eclt.org.
PLAY program
In complement to our due diligence we have initiated support to an after-school project in the Philippines during the year. This is a project under Universal Leaf’s Let’s PLAY Program, providing after-school activities in selected communities where children have been observed to participate in harvest activities, giving children an alternative to working and allowing them to thrive in new activities. Along with conducting interesting alternative activities and improving the quality of the children’s health and education, the objective is also to increase awareness of parents, teachers and community leaders on child labor prevention. This project complements other activities, implemented by this supplier, to mitigate the risk of child labor. Swedish Match’s engagement in this project will complement our own efforts to manage our supply chain sustainably. It will also provide us with enhanced understanding of conditions on the ground in areas from which we source raw tobacco.
1) International Labour Organization.
2) Classification of risk has been done based on geographical location and the Corruption Perception Index of Transparency International (CPI), cross-referenced with Maple Croft’s Human Rights Index and complemented with specific industry-related risk of human and labor rights violations.
3) A significant supplier of direct material is defined as a supplier with which Swedish Match has an annual spend of above 400,000 USD. Suppliers below spend limit that belong to an industry classified as high risk in relation to business integrity and human rights violations have been included regardless of spend, this includes all suppliers of raw tobacco.
4) This includes all suppliers of raw tobacco regardless of country of origin.
