[Full response attached]

The Guardian on Sunday, 3 September 2017 published the article “John Lewis and Habitat withdraw granite worktops over slavery concerns”. The article illustrated that India was the largest global pro-ducer of granite and that an investigation of quarries and waste stone processing sites by the Dutch organisations India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) and Stop Child Labour had revealed and re-ported major human rights and labour rights violations at those locations. One particularly problematic product was identified as the star galaxy granite. [...]

As the article published in The Guardian is still to date referenced by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre to associate nobilia Germany with child and forced labor violations in the Indian granite and mining industry, nobilia Germany would like to reject any association of this kind to the greatest extent and stress the following:

• nobilia Germany (including its subsidiary Kutchenhaus UK, Ltd.) takes its global social and environmental responsibilities very serious. We are continuously improving our risk management to identify and prevent human rights and environmental violations along our supply chain.
• At no point in time has nobilia Germany (including its subsidiary Kutchenhaus UK, Ltd.) manufactured, sourced, offered, sold to or asked a franchisee or customer to purchase, offer or sell (star galaxy) granite worktops or other solid surface worktops (whether from India or any other country). nobilia Germany exclusively manufactures and sells worktops made from wood-based materials.
• Regardless of its lack of legal leverage, as soon as nobilia Germany (through The Guardian’s inquiry) became aware that its products were displayed together with star granite worktops of (potentially) questionable origin, nobilia Germany used its utmost efforts to stop the sale and offering of those granite worktops through the Kutchenhaus franchise system.