We believe that every James Fisher employee, from the board of directors to the engineer at the work site, must live and breathe our valued behaviours – pioneering spirit, integrity, energy and resilience.

By extension, we expect our suppliers to align with and demonstrate these valued behaviours. A solid governance framework is required to underpin our strategy implementation and ensure that we continue to deliver value for all our stakeholders while managing and minimising our risk exposure.

Our business ethics commitments are established in the Group’s Code of Ethics, Anti-Bribery and Corruption Policy and Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Policy. Clear expectations and obligations are set with our employees, partners, suppliers and customers in alignment with these policies and processes are put in place to monitor compliance.

These policies are continually reviewed to ensure alignment with evolving challenges in the world, whilst staying true to our core values and principles, and eeveral training programmes and assurance processes support our policies.

We want to work with responsible suppliers who adhere to our principles and are committed to sustainable business practices. Our supplier onboarding process includes a detailed questionnaire that captures their governance processes, policies and commitments, and examines the credentials of their own supply chains.

We strive to lead by example, using our own credentials to set the tone for what we expect from our suppliers.

During 2021, we focused our efforts on:

1. Corporate governance
2. Supply chain management

We reviewed and identified several governance improvements that will help to strengthen the group’s foundation and support the implementation of its strategy:

• Improvements identified by CGI as part of an externally- facilitated board and committee evaluation
  
  
• Changes to the Group’s risk management systems and controls following a review by PwC LLP. Implementation of these governance improvements is underway

The supplier working group was established to create mutually sustainable, beneficial and collaborative supplier partnerships that offer superior value whilst attaining the highest standards aligned to our group values. Focus in 2021 was to:

• Identify efficiencies: While individual operating companies are responsible for managing their own supply chains and procurement processes, the working group has highlighted opportunities to optimise cost through common categorisation, spend allocation, and supplier relationship management. For example, we are realising new economies of scale where operating companies have been using the same suppliers or purchasing similar products
  
  
• Revise supplier onboarding questionnaire to include key elements of our sustainability strategy and evolving commitments
  
  
• Improve sharing of best practices across operating companies, using the supplier working group as the medium

We will focus our continued efforts on driving improvements in talent management by:

1. Reviewing our Code of Ethics
2. Revising supplier management processes

We will review and refresh our Code of Ethics to align with our sustainability strategy and the changing macro factors that impact our world and industries.

We aim to formalise and introduce a supplier code of conduct, to instil financial and social transparency in the supply chain, with the intention of creating accountability and full disclosure around issues such as human rights, health and safety and environmental impacts. The supplier code will be an extension of our current supplier onboarding questionnaire.

We will continue to target further opportunities for improving supply chain efficiency, develop stronger, open relationships with our suppliers, and streamline the group’s approach to understanding and influencing our suppliers’ commitments to our sustainability strategy and the Code of Ethics.