The BMT group is an international design, engineering and risk management consultancy, working principally in the maritime sector. It was established in 1985 by bringing together research and technology organisations that traced their roots back to the beginning of the 20th century. Our customers are served by around 1,500 professionals located in an international network of 26 subsidiary companies; our head office is based in Teddington, UK.
The parent company, BMT Group Ltd, is a member-based company limited by guarantee, with its assets held in beneficial ownership for the staff through an Employee Benefit Trust (EBT). As an EBT, only the Trustees are entitled to vote at its general meetings. Their remit is to ensure that the Board acts at all times in the best interests of the staff in the short, medium and long-term.
In compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, BMT is committed to social and environmental responsibility and has zero tolerance for slavery and human trafficking. Slavery and human trafficking can occur in many forms, such as forced labour, child labour, domestic servitude, sex trafficking, and related forms of workplace abuse. In this Statement, we use the terms “slavery and human trafficking” to include all forms of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking.
We hold ourselves and our supply chain accountable and we fully comply with the provisions of the Act. We recognise that slavery and human trafficking is a complex supply chain issue and we will be working in partnership with our customers, suppliers and partners to help develop long-term solutions to this issue.
Demonstration of our commitment
Employee Awareness
To ensure that our employees are made aware of the issue of slavery and human trafficking, we have produced a number of tools and publications to support awareness raising.
We have created two booklets on the subject as guidance, both of which have been disseminated to all staff. These have also been made available on our company-wide intranet.
We have further produced a robust ethics policy which again highlights the issue of slavery and human trafficking. To support the dissemination of this policy, we have created an ‘Ethics Passport’ and we are refreshing our on-line e-learning course to improve the content. Completion of the course is mandatory.
To assist our staff who are non-native English speakers, we have translated the passport and the e-learning into a number of languages, including Bahasa and Portuguese.
To ensure that the leaders in our business understand the issues of slavery and human trafficking, we include the topic for discussion in our Leadership Development programme so that senior leaders of our companies are made more aware of the issues.
Assessing the Risk
We carry out a regular review of the risk of modern slavery as part of our ethical business programme, assessing the risks in terms of the geographies and markets in which we operate, and in terms of our customers, suppliers and working methods. We have introduced an International Business Matrix which ranks all countries for various criteria, one of which is the estimated amount of modern slavery. This assessment is used to guide our staff when pursuing work.
Third Party Screening
To ensure that we engage with partners, customers and subcontractors who share our commitments, we use a third party due diligence screening platform available for all our operating companies to use. This service alerts us to adverse publicity, prosecutions, etc. and will highlight any record of unacceptable employment practices. The service selected has been benchmarked against industry standards and its performance is monitored. Use of this tool enables us to make informed decisions regarding out third-party relationships. We now have in excess of 1300 third parties being screened, and any companies being flagged as a red risk are investigated further before business relationships are established or extended.
Violations
BMT’s disciplinary policy permits the termination of employees found to be involved in any breach of the law banning forced labour, slavery and human trafficking.
BMT is committed to maintaining and improving systems and processes to help ensure that there are no human rights violations related to our own operations or our supply chains. To that end, we will continue to update policies and procedures as required to ensure we maintain appropriate safeguards against any mistreatment of persons involved in our supply chain or our own businesses.
BMT Defence Services Ltd
BMT Defence Services is the largest operating company in the group and publishes its own Modern Slavery Statement, which is aligned with that of BMT Group.
Updated November 2017
Corporate Sustainability
Being a good corporate citizen is fundamental to BMT's ethos and we are striving to become a more sustainable business.
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