GEthics is a company based in Geneva, hence GEthics, with a global vocation (Global Ethics), providing services enabling companies (especially multinationals, but also SMEs), banks and other actors of the financial system as well as public procurement contracting authorities to carry out a self-check of their compliance or to check that of their suppliers, subcontractors, partners, customers or bi
dders in terms of social and environmental responsibility on the basis of a universal minimum ground of fundamental rights at work and standards on environmental protection, best practices in compliance and rules for reporting non-financial information. The originality of GEthics is due to the following six facts:
1) unlike any other solutions on the market, our services and products are based strictly on universally applicable legal standards, which can serve as benchmarks against which compliance policies can be confronted and evaluated. In addition, in the self-checking solutions that we have developed, the user is called upon to take into account the standards applicable in the country where the company is based or operates;
2) all the provisions of international labour and environmental standards have been "translated" from the legal language in which they have been drafted into a simple formulation accessible to all users;
3) a Guide to Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility Compliance which deals with the history, background and standards on fundamental rights at work and environmental protection, compliance and the publication of non-financial information and includes guidelines to guide companies in adopting and implementing such a compliance policy and monitoring its application;
4) a questionnaire on an open platform (e-questionnaire on social and environmental compliance checking), comprising 863 questions (in the current version, in French and English, but in other languages also in the future) on compliance and human rights, fundamental rights at work (equality and non-discrimination, elimination of forced labour and child labour, freedom of association and collective bargaining, occupational safety and health), environmental protection and the publication of non-financial information, including specific questions on sustainable financing and investment and public procurement, which users can use as many times as they want to check the state of compliance of their policies and practices, the positive aspects of these and the remaining challenges along their production and supply chains. A demo version is available on demand;
5) an automatic report that is generated at the conclusion of the questionnaire taking into account the answers provided to each question and that companies can use internally or to produce a report for publication in accordance with legal or contractual requirements. We felt that such a report, constantly updated and supplemented, with comments and guidance, was more useful than a simple scoring based on the values assigned to each response. In short, “orientation rather than rating”;
6) a social and environmental compliance checking label. Unlike auditing and certification systems which, with varying degrees of reliability, attest that at some point the company adopts a social and / or environmental responsibility practice or that its products comply with its requirements, our label aims to certify that the company performs self-checking of its commitment to human rights and the environment and compliance with legal requirements of transparency and applicable standards in terms of fundamental rights at work and environmental protection as a constant process of evaluation, adjustment and improvement of policies and practices of social and environmental responsibility. Most likely no company is fully responsible in terms of fundamental rights at work and of the impact of its activities on the environment, so certification of a compliance dynamic is more important than "static" certification. It should be mentioned that GEthics offers training modules on compliance in social and environmental responsibility. Social compliance and environmental impact of productive activities;
2. Human rights and fundamental rights at work;
3. Forced labour and child labour;
4. Discrimination and equality of opportunity and treatment;
5. Occupational safety and health;
6. Freedom of association and collective bargaining;
7. Environmental protection standards;
8. Publication of non-financial information;
9. Social and environmental responsibility in a nutshell. In parallel and in a complementary form, GEthics offers awareness conferences and risk analysis services.
