Governance

All of our suppliers are required to abide by our Supplier Code of Conduct and Corning’s Human Rights Policy to ensure that our global supply chains are conducted in a consistently legal and ethical manner.

Corning has a dedicated supply chain sustainability team, which is part of the company's global supply management function. The team drives internal programs designed to ensure supply chain sustainability (social and environmental), with a particular focus on minimizing the risk of forced labor in the supply chain.

The team also collaborates with colleagues across Corning to provide ongoing oversight of the supplier management process (see Accountability).  This process provides Corning senior management with real-time data regarding supplier compliance and areas of needed improvement.  We continually seek input from internal and external stakeholders to further enhance our supply chain oversight and reporting processes and are committed to continuous improvement and transparency throughout our global network of supplier partners. Corning actively participates in key international organizations such as Responsible Business Alliance, Procurement leaders, Gartner.

Corning’s supply chain is comprised of suppliers within 72 countries, with over 80% of our suppliers in eight countries (see graph on the left to view Corning’s top sourcing countries).By region, North America represents the largest share of our supplier base with 47.4% of suppliers. More specifically, Corning’s risk exposure in these high-risk countries by category is as follows:

Labor and human rights violations may exist in all tiers of the supply chain but can be more difficult to detect with sub-tier suppliers. Corning takes all labor and human rights violations seriously, and all of Corning suppliers are required to adhere to the Supplier Code of Conduct and Human Rights Policy and ensure their suppliers do the same.

Corning’s risk management process begins before companies even join our supply chain. Corning uses Everstream, a supply risk profile / rating solution, to identify potential risks before we select and add suppliers to our supply chain. Everstream is an easy-to-use portal that provides real-time, objective, enterprise-wide risk exposure measurement and reporting across the supply chain.

Corning tracks all critical suppliers, represented by approximately 2,000 suppliers. We are in process of expanding supplier tracking within Everstream to include sub-tier suppliers. These sub-tier suppliers are identified utilizing AI technology.  Through initiatives such as Corning’s responsible mining initiative, we are working to identify and track sub-tier materials suppliers, such as mines, that will be monitored through our supply chain risk assessment tool, Everstream.  Tracking these suppliers is a critical component to meeting our 2025 sustainable supply chain goal and enables Corning to monitor our sub-tier supplier base.

Our risk managers use Everstream’s’ digitalization technologies, including big data real time monitoring, machine learning, and AI to make proactive assessments of supply chain risk across the globe at a moment’s notice.

The Everstream tool collects data from a variety of sources through its content partners, ,  and through scanning thousands of news sites to provide updated risks assessments for Corning’s supply base.  Corning uses Everstream to monitor risks such as labor practices and human rights violations to be alerted if that type of risk is identified in our supply base, including sub-tier suppliers within the database.

Supply chain social and environmental responsibility risks are monitored and evaluated , across the enterprise-wide supply chain , for the following risk profiles:

·    Labor Practices and Human Rights

·    Environmental

·    Information and IP Security

·    Regulatory and Legal

·    Corruption and Bribery

The risk strategy protects the E2E Supply Chain and it two-fold

1. Mitigate risk to prevent or reduce impact of a risk event. Corning does this thru SC visibility and real-time risk assessments. Everstream identifies the risk for each supplier, including Sustainability. This allows Corning to identify risk, create mitigation plans and take actions to build resiliency.

2. React quickly to prevent or reduce impact if a risk event occurs. Thru Everstreams SC visibility risk managers receive real-time notifications if a risk event occurs. When this happens the risk event is managed thru an Incident Management Process which allows for collaboration and escalation.

Employees of Corning, suppliers and other relevant external stakeholders can reach Corning through our Grievance Hotline (Country Code) +1-888-296-8173 or online at www.ethicspoint.com. We take information from workers at Corning, external stakeholders and throughout our supply chain very seriously. Our Grievance Hotline provides safe and easy channel for them to get in touch with us. Information we receive this way may result in additional site visits, audits, or other engagement with a supply chain partner at any time. All reports are reviewed by Corning’s Chief Compliance Officer to determine if the investigation of such a report is warranted. Corning’s Chief Compliance Officer shall periodically provide reports to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors and to the company’s external auditor concerning any Reports received by the company and actions taken by the company in response to such reports.

For more information about the hotline reports received in the prior year, see here.

Corning is committed to high standards of business conduct within its own operations and throughout its supply chain. In line with this commitment, employees, suppliers and other external stakeholders have the right – and the duty – to raise, in good faith, concerns about improper business conduct without fear of retaliation in any form. See Speak Up Policy.