Anti-slavery and human trafficking statement

The Toni&Guy Group (the “Group”) is committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Our ethical code reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to ensure slavery and human trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.

Our business

The Group directly and indirectly operates hair salons worldwide, and provides haircare products, accessories, specialist furniture and equipment to hairdressing salons. We collectively employ around 1,240 people worldwide.

In terms of preventing slavery and human trafficking, we have two main areas of focus: first in the production and supply of Toni&Guy, label.m and related branded products; and second in the labour used in any Toni&Guy or essensuals branded salons.

Our supply chain

All of our branded products are produced by a number of different manufacturers and suppliers who are based in four continents: Asia, Australia (Oceania), Europe and North America. They are all expected to sign and adhere to our Ethical Agreement, which requires them to take all reasonable steps to ensure that they (and those in their supply chain) comply with all Modern Slavery legislation and ethical standards.

We also contract with distributors to supply our products to hair salons internationally. As part of our updated distribution agreement, we require all our distributors to ensure that they comply with local legislation and relevant modern slavery legislation.

Our salons

There are approximately 480 Toni&Guy salons in 45 countries and 165 essensuals salons in 11 countries. Whilst most Toni&Guy and essensuals salons are franchisee-owned and run at arm’s length, our franchise agreements require all our franchisees to abide by employment law requirements and modern slavery legislation. This would of course include a requirement not to use forced labour and to comply with immigration requirements.

Compliance

Our suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and franchisees are required to comply with local laws in the territories which they operate and, in most instances, the local laws are robust in tackling the issues raised by the UK modern slavery legislation.

Though we operate in a relatively low risk sector, modern slavery is a serious issue and we have implemented policies to combat this in our business and our supply chain. If we receive any complaints or have any indication that a supplier, manufacturer, distributor or franchisee is not complying, it will be taken seriously and investigated appropriately depending on the nature of the complaint. If they are found not to comply with our Ethical Agreement or the Modern Slavery legislation, we will consider taking proportionate action, i.e. insist that the relevant party make necessary changes, cease using them if they continue to be in breach, and in the event of severe breach of the legislation, report the party to the authorities.

We value feedback and dialogue, and we strongly encourage employees, franchisees, customers, suppliers or any third party to bring any suspected wrongdoing on these (or any other issues) to our attention. Others should bring any matters to the attention of our group General Counsel, John Miller, who is responsible for compliance matters.

Looking forward

In our continued efforts to comply with modern slavery legislation and actively echo its spirit throughout the business, we will concentrate on increasing employee awareness of the issues of modern slavery and ensuring we offer appropriate staff training on identifying instances of modern slavery.

This statement is made pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and constitutes our Group's slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31 August 2018.