Good governance and ethical operating principles

All of our operations are based on our Code of Conduct for employees and suppliers. Our Code of Conduct represents Berner’s values – work, integrity and humanity – as well as the generally accepted guidelines of conduct as documented in the UN Global Compact’s ten principles. In late 2019, we launched a compulsory bi-annual course on our Code of Conduct for our personnel. New employees must complete the course at the start of the employment relationship.

All Berner employees are obligated to comply with the Code of Conduct and immediately report all suspicions or observations of inconsistencies with or violations of the Code of Conduct. We encourage our employees to primarily report their suspicions without any fear of retaliation. Employees who wish to report suspected violations anonymously can do it via the WhistleB reporting channel we launched in 2019. The channel also allows our external stakeholders to report potential suspicions concerning conduct that violates the law and our Code of Conduct. The service is available at https://report.whistleb.com/berner in eight languages.

Open communications and stakeholder relationships

Our goal is to communicate on our operations in an open, timely and stakeholder-driven manner. Our communication principles are trustworthiness, openness, understandability and interaction.

We monitor the development of our reputation and awareness of the Berner brand among the general public by means of T-Media’s Trust and Reputation survey and Dentsu’s Brand Tracking survey, which is conducted several times per year.

We also assess employee satisfaction with internal communication channels and topics.