Modern slavery is a crime and a violation of fundamental human rights. It takes various forms, such as slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour and human trafficking, all of which have in common the deprivation of a person’s liberty by another in order to exploit them for personal or commercial gain.

This policy applies to all persons working for or on our behalf of Athena Civil Engineering Ltd in any capacity. This includes employees at all levels, directors, officers, agency workers, seconded workers, volunteers, agents, contractors and suppliers.

Athena CE Ltd strictly prohibits the use of modern slavery and human trafficking in any of our operations and supply chain. We have and will continue to be committed to implementing systems and controls aimed at ensuring that modern slavery is not taking place anywhere within our organisation or in any of our supply chains. We expect that our suppliers will hold their own suppliers to the same standards.

We shall be a company that expects everyone working with us or on our behalf to support and uphold the following measures to safeguard against modern slavery:

• We have a zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery in our organisation and our supply chains.
• The prevention, detection and reporting of modern slavery in any part of our organisation or supply chain is the responsibility of all those working for us or on our behalf. Workers must not engage in, facilitate or fail to report any activity that might lead to, or suggest, a breach of this policy.
• We are committed to engaging with our stakeholders and suppliers to address the risk of modern slavery in our operations and supply chain.
• We take a risk-based approach to our contracting processes and keep them under review. We assess whether the circumstances warrant the inclusion of specific prohibitions against the use of modern slavery and trafficked labour in our contracts with third parties. Using our risked based approach, we will also assess the merits of writing to suppliers requiring them to comply with our Code of Conduct, which sets out the minimum standards required to combat modern slavery and trafficking.
• Consistent with our risk-based approach we may require:
  o employment and recruitment agencies and other third parties supplying workers to our organisation to confirm their compliance with our Code of Conduct
  o Suppliers engaging workers through a third party to obtain that third parties’ agreement to adhere to the Code
• As part of our ongoing risk assessment and due diligence processes, we will consider whether circumstances warrant us carrying out audits of suppliers for their compliance with our Code of Conduct.

If we find that other individuals or organisations working on our behalf have breached this policy, we will ensure that we take appropriate action. This may range from considering the possibility of breaches being remediated and whether that might represent the best outcome for those individuals impacted by the breach to terminating such relationships.

Training on this policy, and on the risk our business faces from modern slavery in its supply chains, forms part of the induction process for all individuals who work for us, and regular training will be provided as necessary.

Our zero-tolerance approach to modern slavery must be communicated to all suppliers, contractors and business partners at the outset of our business relationship with them and reinforced as appropriate thereafter