Statement

Wordscape Ltd is committed to ensuring that our colleagues are not subject to behaviour or threats that may amount to modern slavery, human trafficking, forced labour, physical and mental harm, and other violations of their human rights. We commit to ensuring that practices throughout our business and supply chains are consistent with our disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking and Exploitation Acts 2015. We embrace our responsibility to be alert to risks of human trafficking and modern slavery in our business and our wider supply chain.  

This statement sets out our commitment to avoid any form of modern slavery or human trafficking within our operations and supply chain.

 Our business

Wordscape is a team of creatives who specialise in storytelling and communication. We work with businesses to help you deliver your message in an authentic and memorable way, connecting people and ideas: you with your audience; products with a marketplace or ideas with investors.

 We’re a socially responsible business and aim to work in the best interest of our community. We strive to better understand our impact and are working towards formalising our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments through a materiality matrix process. 

 Our supply chain

Our procurement function is small and centralised. We use fewer than thirty suppliers within the United Kingdom. As professional services providers, modern slavery is not pervasive in our industry – but we are committed to taking steps to uncover potential risks within our supply chain. 

However, as a publisher, we also recognise that deforestation – including for the pulp and paper industry – can be a major cause of modern slavery. As a result, the paper we use for our projects is certified FSC Mix, which means that the timber or fibre is a mixture of some/all of the following:
• Virgin timber/fibre from FSC-certified forests
• Reclaimed or recycled timber/fibre
• FSC controlled wood

FSC-certified forests are managed with consideration for people, wildlife and the environment. They are independently audited to ensure they meet FSC’s Principles and Criteria for Forest Management.

FSC Controlled Wood is material that avoids certain unacceptable sources and that can be mixed with FSC-certified material in products that carry the FSC Mix label. To count as FSC Controlled Wood, a material’s forest of origin must be risk assessed against the FSC Controlled Wood standards and found to be at low risk of being illegally logged, harvested from areas where there is violation of traditional or civil rights, harvested from forests in which high conservation values are threatened by management activities, harvested from areas being converted from forests and other wooded ecosystems to plantations or non-forest uses or harvested from forests in which genetically modified (GM) trees are planted.

Our practices

Wordscape has implemented practices and policies aimed at minimising the risk of modern slavery or human trafficking, and we encourage reporting of any related concerns. Our actions include:

  • Procurement practice: we procure from reputable suppliers that meet their disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking and Exploitation Acts 2015.

  • We use externally validated supplies where we are aware of a potential issue, such as our FSC-Mix paper.

  • Training: our learning and development policies are robust to ensure that all colleagues are aware of our commitment to avoid human trafficking and modern slavery and are trained on their obligations to report suspicion of abuses within our operations and supply chain to the director.

  • Materiality: we are in the process of developing our own materiality matrix, which identifies areas of ESG where we can improve, or have a greater positive impact. This has been developed with the input of our whole team and is a way to identify and monitor ongoing areas for improvement. 

 Definitions

Slavery – behaviour on the part of the offender as if they owned the victim, depriving the victim of their freedom;

 Forced or compulsory labour – work or service of a victim which involves coercion, either direct threats or violence or more subtle forms of compulsion. Work or service is extracted from the victim under the menace of any penalty and for which the victim has not offered themselves voluntarily;

 Human trafficking – arrangements for the travel of the victim with a view to them being exploited.

 Our response to modern slavery

We do not tolerate any form of modern slavery within our operations or supply chains. Our team members are instructed to notify the director as soon as possible if they have any concerns, issues or suspicions about modern slavery in any parts of the business or its supply chains.

 We encourage openness and will support anyone who raises genuine concerns in good faith under this policy, even if they turn out to be mistaken. We are committed to ensuring that no one suffers any detrimental treatment as a result of reporting in good faith their suspicion that modern slavery of whatever form is or may be taking place in any part of our business or supply chain.

 Distribution

This policy has been distributed and communicated to the Wordscape team and is published on the Wordscape website.