Corporate Social Responsibility
At The Watches of Switzerland Group, we see Corporate Social Responsibility as a key element of how we conduct our business and believe it makes great business sense. We believe that giving back to the community demonstrates our commitment to both customers and colleagues, helps us form stronger relationships with our suppliers and helps us recruit and retain the best people.
The Watches of Switzerland Group Vision is to be the best watch and jewellery retailer. But our Values and our culture make us so much more than just a leading retailer.
Our continued success requires a real commitment to doing business responsibly. For us, our commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not only driven by good economics, but also by our sense of “doing the right thing”.
We aim to meet our responsibilities by:
- Employing and retaining great people
- Engaging our people, our partners and our customers to promote sustainable living
- Dealing fairly with our suppliers and selling responsibly sourced, quality products
- Making a positive difference to our local communities
Doing the Right Thing for our Environment
The Watches of Switzerland Group is committed to being an environmentally conscious and responsible retailer. We recognise that we have a duty to identify and minimise the impact that we have on the environment and over recent years we have introduced a number of environmental initiatives into our business, for example we have installed SMART meters across a number of our showrooms in order to monitor our energy usage. The information provided by these meters helps us determine how we can make changes in store in order to improve efficiencies in our energy consumption and reduce our impact on the environment.
We comply with the relevant international laws and industry regulations when sourcing our products and insist on written guarantees from suppliers that our products conform to international regulations. We also stock an exclusive Canadian Diamond range; our completely ethical, fully traceable and conflict free diamond collection. Canadian Diamonds are mined in accordance with the principles of sustainable development and the highest environmental standards in the world.
Doing the Right Thing for the Community
The Watches of Switzerland Group colleagues and teams have an established track record of playing an active, positive role in local communities, where we give time and expertise to a range of organisations.
Leicestershire Cares is part of a national movement of Cares Partnerships that enables employees to make a difference in their communities by offering a range of opportunities designed to make volunteering easy, rewarding and valuable for all involved. The Watches of Switzerland Group have participated in a number of activities/ projects over the past couple years, including coaching on Interview Techniques for students attending local colleges. We have conducted tours of our business with some of the most disadvantaged children in the Leicestershire area, providing the teenagers with increased awareness of the possible career opportunities that are out there for them.
We have also coordinated collections for a variety of Christmas projects and initiatives run by Leicestershire Cares and undertaken Community Challenge projects in association with the charity. Most recently these have included painting offices for a local community support centre and Cancer Charity.
Doing the Right Thing for Charity
The Watches of Switzerland Group actively supports a number of charities and encourages support and giving in a number of ways…
The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity is the Goldsmiths nominated Charity. The Royal Marsden is a world-leading cancer centre, at the forefront of cancer research and providing care for more than 40,000 cancer patients every year. We have supported the charity with sales of pin badges and Unity bands in Goldsmiths stores, sponsored walks and cycles in addition to donations for raffles.
The Princes Trust is a youth charity that helps change young lives. Mappin & Webb were proud to sponsor The Trust’s Young Ambassador of the Year Award at the annual Celebrate Success Awards. Mappin & Webb is also proud to produce the annual Prince’s Trust Award bowls for the charity’s annual awards.
Mappin & Webb provides mentoring days to groups of young people from the Prince’s Trust, while our management team provides ongoing mentoring support to selected individuals.
Working with the charity Never Such Innocence Mappin & Webb is reintroducing its famed Campaign watches and 7% of net sales will be donated to the charity. Never Such Innocence works to ensure young people nationally are inspired, informed and included in the centenary activities
QEST (Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust), is the charitable arm of the Royal Warrant Holders Association. Mappin & Webb is proud to support QEST and in 2015 took on its first QEST sponsored apprenticeship in our London workshop, with the goal of passing on the skills of our master craftsman and Crown Jeweller to the next generation.
We continue to support education through sponsorship of the British School of Watch Making, where we are the largest contributor as a retailer. This year we have further increased our sponsorship.
The teams in our Leicester Head Office site, Aurum House have a dedicated Charities & Community Team to support all of this activity and in addition to all of the above have four nominated local charities that they raise money for.
We work closely with colleagues to support all fundraising activities whatever their chosen event or charity. We also run a ‘Payroll Giving’ scheme which allows colleagues to donate to their preferred charities in a tax efficient way.
