Modern Slavery Statement

Global Switch – Prevention of Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement

Global Switch is a leading owner, operator and developer of large scale, carrier and cloud neutral, multi-customer, data centre facilities in Europe and Asia-Pacific.

Our Commitment

At Global Switch we are committed to ensuring that the standards set-out in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (“the Act”) are adhered to throughout our group and across our global supply chain and that slavery, servitude, forced labour and human trafficking in all forms are prevented. This statement sets out our approach and the actions that we have taken to ensure compliance with the Act.

Who We Are and Our Operations

Global Switch's operations and business consist of providing technical space in large facilities based in global financial hubs with resilient 24x7x365 power and cooling, security, and infrastructure and environmental monitoring for its customers to house their computer servers, network equipment and other IT infrastructure. The vast majority of our employees are engaged in the management of our data centres, supporting our customers and operating our technical facilities. We do not own or operate any manufacturing facilities, nor construction companies.

Our Business

Within our own business, we operate a strict policy against modern slavery and human trafficking arising in any form. We ensure that the policy is adhered to by all Global Switch staff through our internal policy as well as a recruitment process in all parts of our business that is overseen by our central Human Resources department, who is responsible for ensuring our recruitment complies with the Act and reports to the Group Board regarding the same. Internal training supports this activity to ensure our people are aware of and adhere to our obligations under the Act.

Our Supply Chain

Our supply chain consists primarily of domestic and international vendors in industry sectors such as equipment manufacture and construction engineering both for our existing data centres and also new developments. We also engage with consultancy service providers which support the business’ day-to-day functions relating to facilities management, IT, Operations, Sales, Marketing, Communications, Legal, Finance and Human Resources.

We consider that our supply chain is low risk, with equipment manufacturers producing specialised and technically complex items that require a skilled workforce which is generally less vulnerable to the exploitation of people and our construction takes place in countries where there are strong safeguards against slavery, human trafficking and the exploitation of people generally.

Notwithstanding this assessment, we utilise comprehensive due diligence processes and procedures in our procurement to ensure that we consistently meet the standards required under the Act. So too, we have contractual terms in our standard agreements for the various goods and services that we procure requiring our suppliers to adhere to the requirements of the Act and our policy on the prevention of slavery and human trafficking.

We regularly assess our supply chain to determine whether any element of it may be of higher risk than presently assessed and / or requires us to physically audit it. This is a continuous process and we are committed to physical inspections where our risk assessment determines this to be sensible.

Global Switch is fully committed to and supports the goal of eradicating all forms of modern slavery and human trafficking and we continue to monitor our supply chain and seek to improve its processes and activity generally with a view to ensuring that goal is achieved.