Compliance

The Bartels-Langness Handelsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG has a long history, during which we have always linked our economic goals to our corporate social responsibility. We, the management and employees of the Bartels-Langness Handelsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, are fully aware of our responsibility to respect human rights. This awareness forms an integral part of our business relationships, and we consistently strive to ensure compliance with social and environmental standards as well as legal requirements. Therefore, we align our business activities with the following generally-applicable standards and guidelines:

• the United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• the conventions and recommendations of the International Labour Organization (ILO) on labour and social standards
• the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
• the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)

Within our company, and also in all our business relationships, we do not tolerate any violations of human rights! We condemn all forms of child labour and forced labour. Discrimination of any kind – whether based on gender, skin colour, religion, ethnic origin, age, nationality, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, social origin or political views – has no place with us.

We strive to achieve our benchmarks for social standards, both within our company and also in our business relationships. As part of our risk management, we regularly exchange information within our group of companies and with our suppliers. This not only serves to prevent possible human rights violations, but also to share knowledge and experience within the supply chains. In addition, we have integrated supporting tools into our business processes – these inform us immediately of any legal changes and requirements. Our corporate benchmarks for responsible conduct are set out in our

• Code of Conduct of the Bartels-Langness group of companies
• Code of Conduct for Business Partner

guidelines.

The implementation of regular risk analyses supports us in identifying possible human rights violations, especially in the areas of environmental protection, discrimination, occupational health and safety, remuneration, data protection and child labour as well as forced labour. Here, too, we use another IT-supported tool to carry out these analyses:

On the one hand, our suppliers receive a questionnaire on risk assessment on a regular basis, and on the other hand, the programme provides us with current reports on the topics of environmental protection and human rights. Through bundling various sources of information within the tool, we are able to more accurately and better assess and evaluate the risks within our organisation and in relation to our direct suppliers.

We are aware that, despite our high benchmarks and diligent compliance, there may nevertheless be violations that cannot always be identified, due to the large number of business relationships. Therefore, we have established a complaints procedure as a key instrument. It helps us to identify risks and human rights violations. Our anonymous whistleblowing system is available to everyone – whether business partners, customers or employees – at https://www.bkms-system.com/bartels-langness.

The next step envisaged is to develop and implement internal and external prevention and remedial measures. These measures will help us to correctly handle the detection of irregularities, and also to take appropriate steps to eliminate them.

We live in a world that is constantly changing at an ever-increasing rate. Accordingly, we will continually review and improve our instruments and our human rights strategy. We constantly strive for cooperation that is free of human rights violations.