Ethics in business is a strange thing. Really it just means that we try to do the right thing by everyone we have contact with, our suppliers, workers and customers. Yet when you have a big organisation it can become so much more complicated!

Being ethical isn’t something you can add on as an afterthought. It’s not about a report, a tick box exercise, or earning a certificate. It’s about the underlying principles, the culture of an organisation, and it affects every single thing we do. Here at Gemar we believe in six principles, and we strive to uphold them every day.

Transparency
It’s important to be open and transparent, telling the whole truth. That’s why we chose to have our sustainability report certified by a third party, so that you know it’s a genuine report into everything we do. Nothing is hidden, because we have nothing to hide.

Trustworthiness
You can trust Gemar to do what we say we will do. Whether that’s manufacturing balloons that are always top quality, delivering events even if we can’t be there in person, or treating people fairly. We will always go the extra mile to keep our word.

Fairness, Respect and Compassion
We always aim to treat everyone with respect and kindness. This means many different things, in different situations. It could be about prioritising hiring local people and providing fair work contracts, being honest in our marketing or resolving a customer complaint so that everyone is happy (not that we have too many of those!)

Everyone, wherever they are in our supply chain and however we encounter them, deserves to be treated well. This is one of the reasons Gemar is a member of SEDEX, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to improving the ethics of global supply chains. When you reach around the world it’s important to do it with kindness and respect.

Compassion also meant that during 2020 we provided many free events and tutorials to lift people’s spirits when they had to stay at home, and we continue to make those resources available here. Not only that, we made donations to the Covid 19 response fund in the hope that we could help to make a difference.

Responsibility
As an industry leader, Gemar has a responsibility to our industry, our customers, our employees, to the planet, and to future generations. We work to improve, not just our own standards, but standards across the whole industry. We believe that when we all work together we can reach far greater heights than if we pull each other down, and ultimately that has to be the aim. That is why we are active members of many organisations, like European Standardisation bodies CEN CENELEC and UNI.

We take our responsibilities seriously, and always treat others the way we would like to be treated ourselves. At the end of the day, that’s what ethics is really all about.