Your Questions

The standards that Groupe SEB imposed on its industrial and logistics entities are the ISO 9001 ans 14001 standards, and OHSAS 18001. 

The ISO 9001 standard concerns the optimization of the quality of eight management principles, including customer orientation, the director’s role, employee involvement, continuous improvement and partnerships with suppliers.

The ISO 14001 standard focuses on environmental management. In order to obtain it, each site must spell out a policy to limit its activities’ environmental impact depending on the standard’s requirements and set goals. Of course, the 14001 standard applies to environmental aspects within our control.

The OHSAS 18001 standard is the global standard recognized for occupational health and safety management systems. Based on the principles of continuous improvement, it helps to reduce the risks with regard to health and safety at the Group's sites in the most effective way.

We obtain and keep our certifications thanks to external audits on a regular basis. The inspections focus on general management’s commitment to complying with legislation and to implementing continuous improvement measures.
 

Our first requirement involves the substances used in making our products. In 2003, the Groupe drafted a list of harmful substances and banned them from its products. This move went beyond the regulatory demands of many countries. In 2005, Groupe SEB rounded out the list with substances listed in the European ROHS directive on the limitation of hazardous materials, which came into force on 1 July 2006. A new update was made in 2007 to integrate the European REACH regulations on the registration, evaluation, authorization and restrictions of chemical substances. This regulation came into force on 1st June 2007. The list of banned substances applies to the Groupe’s sites and to all the suppliers having signed an eco-declaration.

In addition, with the “Nutritious and Delicious” line, we offer products which make it possible to combine pleasure and healthy eating. For example, the Actifry deep fryer makes it possible to produce crispy fries with almost no oil (just one tablespoon), and the steamers and steam ovens offer a natural and healthy way of cooking all kinds of foods.

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Our way of reducing a product’s environmental impact is to design it to be as recyclable as possible. That means being able to salvage as many of its components as possible in order to process and re-use them or to turn them into something else, such as energy, for example. The group has created an indicator of its products’ potential recyclability – potential, because recycling facilities are operational in only a few countries, although the situation is gradually improving. The goal was to achieve a 70% potential recyclability index (in mass), and it has already been surpassed. To achieve the objective, the design office focuses on potentially recyclable materials, in particular metals and polypropylene, limits the number of plastic materials in a single product in order to facilitate sorting, and designs appliances that are easy to take apart.

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For several years, Groupe SEB has been committed to boosting its environmental performance. Since 2003, it has implemented a global environmental management system based on the international ISO 14001 standard, with the goal to reach 100% by late 2012, including Supor. Recently acquired entities have a three-year grace period. This is a continuous process: it is never over. That’s why we have set up a standardised data-gathering system to keep track of trends in the key indicators of the group’s environmental performance and limit the risk of pollution.

Groupe SEB, then, acts on every level of the manufacturing process: recycling waste, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, reducing consumption (water, gas, electricity, etc.) and increasing the reparability, homogeneity and especially, recyclability of sold products.

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Groupe SEB requires all of its suppliers to sign an eco-declaration. This is a contractual agreement by which suppliers pledge not to use substances prohibited by law or by Groupe SEB’s environmental policy in the manufacturing processes of products or parts they make for us.

Groupe SEB has listed the certifications that its suppliers have obtained for their European plants in materials directly used in production and urges the main ones to be ISO 9002 and ISO 14001 certified.
In particular, Groupe SEB has performed a cost/benefit analysis of some of its suppliers’ ISO certifications in order to encourage others to do the same.

In an approach similar to that of the SA 8000 standard, Groupe SEB has broadened the number of suppliers questioned about their social practices (especially in Asia). Among other things, the process involves having suppliers fill out a social declaration in which they clarify their social policies and make commitments. More advanced audits are performed of suppliers whose answers are vague or who are reluctant to respond. 

The Group may have to restructure one or more sites to protect its competitiveness, even if this is never an easy decision to make. In cases of site closures or staff cuts, we do our utmost to act compassionately and responsibly. In real terms, this means all financial and human resources necessary are put in place to find a solution for each employee affected, whether this is in the Group or externally. We also do the maximum to support new companies starting operations in the region to sustain the development of the labour pool.

This gave us adequate time to find solutions and put our commitments to all employees into practice.
In addition, we provide regular training for our employees to reinforce their skills and extend their skill set to ease their adaptation to the changing job market.