Taking our corporate duty of care seriously, we proactively seek ways to improve the sustainability of our operation and environment.
Social and Corporate Responsibility
As part of the Indian operation, Natural Paving manages a number of quarries and factory facilities. Being fully aware of inhumane practices that exist within this industry, Natural Paving has made a firm commitment to lead the way and show the world and industry just how natural stone mining can be conducted successfully and ethically. As part of our ethical journey Natural Paving are continuously making improvements and introducing new standards and respects all of its employees, contractors and suppliers. Since managing our Indian manufacturing and processing facilities we have invested significant amounts of time, money and resource, working hard to ensure that all workers enjoy the best possible living and working conditions including:
- Building welfare facilities and living accommodations.
- Providing sanitized and chilled drinking water – something that many Western workers take for granted, but not common place in Indian places of work.
- Auditing and control of operations to ensure the factories have high standard of safety.
Working with local communities
Natural Paving is committed to supporting its local environment in the USA, UK and India and as part of our ethical stance we are proud to support the children’s orphanage, SCMCH (see image above), situated in the town local to the new factory. SCMCH is specifically for children aged 6 –19. Our recent work with SCMCH has included the installation of a new clean drinking water system and financial donations to this very worthy cause. Local media have taken an interest in our work, which we hope will enhance our acceptance into this community and enable us to give something back, through supporting SCMCH. Our long term commitment to this project aims to make life much better for the Children at SCMCH.
Image shows Nobel Peace prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi, the founder of the BBA
Stone Exporters (Natural Paving’s sole supplier) has partnered with New Delhi based NGO, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) since 2015 to improve the lives of Indian children near the quarries and is funding 10 new Child Friendly Villages as part of its ‘Bal Mitra Gram’ program. BBA has worked tirelessly throughout decades to eradicate child exploitation and promote child rights.
These child friendly villages, set up by the BBA, ensure every child up to the age of 14 gets a quality education and there is a community ban on all child labor and child marriage. Stone Exporters have also opened a new state-of-the-art factory, which will provide further job opportunities to local people. The ‘Bal Mitra Gram’ program was recently launched at the factory and attended by over 2000 people.
As proactive and passionate members of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), the quarrying, manufacturing and sourcing of our stone is conducted professionally, ethically and exceeds the ETI 9 point base code of conduct, ensuring no child labor, fair wages and safe working conditions. Our company ethos is that we invest in our people, to give our staff a good work life balance, enjoying the best possible working and living conditions.
Environmental Impact
We have received ISO 14001 certification (Environmental Management), which has provided a framework for Natural Paving to enhance how we manage our environmental impact and improve our environmental performance. For example, we are continually investigating all aspects of energy consumption and we are establishing a program for reduction with measurable targets as part of our ISO14001 commitment. We endeavor to minimize waste through reducing, reusing, recycling and responsible disposal. We are continually developing relationships with suppliers and customers to promote improvements in environmental performance. We always incorporate environmental considerations into our future decision making.
One of our current targets is to reduce our waste transportation and drive efficiencies into the production process within the quarries which we are involved in managing in India.
