Modern Slavery Statement

Chopard is opposed to slavery and human trafficking and is committed to making meaningful improvements to sustainable workplace conditions and business practices including, but not limited to, the prevention of forced or trafficked labour. We consider the social, environmental and financial impacts of each of our Swiss luxury watches and jewellery throughout our supply chain and in our business operations and join our industry peers in global initiatives that drive corporate responsibility throughout the watch and jewellery industry.

This statement is made pursuant to Section 54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and sets out the steps Chopard has taken to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in our supply chains or in any part of our business.

Chopard is one of the last family-run watchmaking, jewellery and high jewellery companies in the world. For well over a century, artisans in Switzerland with traditional skills and knowledge have created our finest jewellery and Swiss made watches. With our head office in Switzerland, the Group has over 2,000 employees worldwide and we operate in several countries across the world.

In 2010, Chopard became a member of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), a standards-setting organisation that has been established to reinforce consumer confidence in the jewellery industry by promoting responsible ethical, human rights, social and environmental practices throughout the jewellery supply chain. The Responsible Jewellery Council has developed a common platform of standards for the jewellery supply chain and credible mechanisms for verifying responsible business practices through third party auditing. As a fully certified RJC member, we commit to operating our business according to the principles stipulated by the RJC Code of Practices.

We are committed to ensuring that there is no modern slavery or human trafficking in our supply chains or in any part of our business. Our Corporate Social Responsibility philosophy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to maintaining effective systems to ensure forced labour or trafficking is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains.

We have adopted a Code of Conduct for Partners, outlining our expectations from all downstream partners on responsible business practices. We require all our business partners to adhere this policy and to respect human rights, labour and environmental standards wherever they operate around the world.

To ensure all those in our supply chain comply with our values and our policy we have put a responsible sourcing compliance programme in place as part of our ‘Journey to Sustainable Luxury’.

‘The Journey to Sustainable Luxury’

Gold is the raw material most widely used in our production. It is because of this that we have devoted particular attention to ensuring that one of the biggest milestones of our Journey to Sustainable Luxury would be the sourcing of responsibly mined gold for our entire luxury watch and jewellery production. This objective has been successfully met since July 2018 when Chopard began using 100% Ethically produced gold - verified as having met international best practice environmental and social standards - in its workshops. More specifically, our Ethical gold is sourced through two transparent and traceable schemes: gold from RJC Chain of Custody (CoC)-certified refineries and from responsible artisanal and small-scale mines. Responsibly extracted gold from artisanal and small-scale mines is essential to our sourcing strategy, as it allows us to have full traceability from mine to market, while contributing to a positive socio-economic and environmental impact.

We abide by the Kimberley Process system of warranties in order to help eliminate conflict diamonds from the industry supply chain.

We have put in place a self-regulation initiative for all diamond suppliers, requiring them to refrain from buying or selling conflict diamonds, diamonds from suspect or unknown sources as well as diamonds from countries and regions that have not implemented the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. Stones, which do not conform to the Kimberley Process, are automatically refused and returned to the supplier.

Our Responsible Sourcing Programme strives to achieve the best sustainability practices in our supply chain with the monitoring of our suppliers. Our system continuously assesses and mitigates any risks of slavery and human trafficking that could occur in our precious metals’, diamonds’ and coloured gemstones’ supply chains. Our system is compliant with OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, and includes the following elements : identification of potential risk areas in our supply chains (risk assessment); implementation of a programme to audit our suppliers; mitigation of risk of slavery and human trafficking; monitoring of potential risk areas; and protection of whistle blowers.

We understand that our contribution will count more if we act in concert with others. We favour long-term partnerships with our suppliers and work with them to improve the sustainability criteria of our supply chain and continue searching for new, sustainable solutions and alternatives. Therefore, we partner with the Swiss Better Gold Association to support the formalisation, and the sustainable development of artisanal and small-scale mining communities. We have designed and implemented initiatives that improve the lives and working conditions of producers in our supply chain, many of which are in developing countries.

Well aware of the numerous challenges associated with the responsible sourcing of coloured gemstones, we joined the Coloured Gemstones Working Group (CGWG) in 2019, a unique alliance between the world's leading luxury jewellery brands and gemstone mining companies that intends to improve and make corporate sustainability accessible to all in the gemstone industry.

We take our corporate social responsibility and ethics extremely seriously. Our ethical commitments form part of our Employee Code of Conduct. Further, we understand that training is a fundamental way to raise awareness and effectively implement the organisation’s commitment to fair working practices. Therefore, we undertake employee trainings to help them understand the organisation’s stance on slavery and human trafficking.