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BLUE LABEL INTEGRATED ANNUAL REPORT 2015
ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND BUSINESS CONDUCT
Good corporate governance is essentially about
effective and responsible leadership. It is
characterised by the ethical values of responsibility,
accountability, fairness and transparency. The typical
aspects of corporate governance, such as the role
and responsibilities of the Board and Directors
individually, internal audit, risk management and
stakeholder engagement rest on a foundation of
ethical values.
Blue Label’s ethical standards are encapsulated in
its ethics statement, which provides a template for
ethical reasoning as a guide to all employees in
their dealings with both internal and external
stakeholders. The ethics statement is applicable
to employees across the Group, as well as to
customers, business partners, suppliers and other
stakeholders. Each is requested to uphold the ethical
reasoning of the statement, thereby enabling us to
live our values.
The purpose of the ethics statement is to:
•
•
emphasise the Group’s commitment to ethics
and compliance with laws and regulations;
•
•
set out basic standards of ethical and legal
behaviour;
•
•
provide reporting mechanisms for known or
suspected ethical or legal violations; and
•
•
help prevent and detect wrongdoing.
Blue Label reiterates its stance on the following
matters:
•
•
fraudulent, corrupt or illegal practices are not
tolerated. Bribes or any other illicit payments
including facilitations will neither be paid
nor received;
•
•
the Group does not participate in any illegal
anti-competitive activity. Employees cannot
authorise or participate in any illegal conduct or
action that purports to restrict competition; and
•
•
the Group is non-political.
Employees are expected to demonstrate ethical
business practices. All new staff members undergo
an induction programme that includes training on
the above code of business conduct, including the
function of the ethics hotline, such as what should
be reported and how to report unethical behaviour
via this channel. The ethics hotline is outsourced to
KPMG Ethics Line, a division of KPMG, and has been
certified by EthicsSA as fulfilling the External
Whistleblowing Hotline Service Provider Standard
EO1.1.1. This standard is a best practice set of
guidelines or norms for the professional and ethical
conduct of external whistleblowing hotline service
providers operating their own centres or facilities.
A number of incidents were reported during the
year. All incidents were human resource-related
and were resolved by the Group Head of Human
Resources and the relevant line managers, in terms
of the Group’s various policies and procedures.