The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) has written to stone companies to tell them to stop claiming to be its members when they are not.

The fact that companies want to claim to be members of ETI without having to pay the subscription or carry out the audits of their supply chain required by membership, perhaps indicates a growing awareness among customers of the issues of child and bonded labour involved in importing stone from the Far East.

The ETI was set up by the government in 1998 to encourage British firms to eliminate child and bonded labour from their supply chains, especially when buying from developing countries, and encourage the creation of safer working environments.

Stone is the fastest growing sector of ETI, again indicating a growing awareness of ethical trading issues. The stone members of ETI have created their own collaborative Stone Group in order to co-ordinate their approach to the issues.

Marshalls were first to join up, in 2006, precisely because they import stone for hard landscaping from India. They have become champions of ethical trading. Their efforts to improve working conditions in their supply chain include funding a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that runs four schools and six health centres in India.

Since 2006, eight other companies have joined. Membership subscriptions start at £2,000 a year for companies with a turnover of up to £20million and increase with turnover. There is also a one-off joining fee of £500.

But some companies in the stone industry have been seeking to gain the legitimacy of the ETI for the stone they sell without actually joining the initiative and paying the subscription or ensuring the stone they sell is ethically sourced. Often claims about supporting the ETI are made on websites and in sales literature.

In recent weeks, ETI has become aware of two more non-ETI companies in the stone sector misleading their customers in this way, bringing the number the organisation has written to about the matter in the past year to 10.

In letters to the offending companies ETI tells them to remove all statements that wrongly infer they are ETI members from their websites and other promotional material.

Martin Cooke, ETI Director and Chair of the organisation’s Stone Group, says: “The recent upsurge in ETI membership among stone importers is a sign of a bold new resolve within the industry to face up to some of the difficult labour standards issues that exist in supply countries.

“It is therefore all the more worrying to see some unscrupulous companies making statements which not only suggest membership of ETI but also distort what ETI membership stands for.

“This threatens to undermine the credibility of ETI and ethical trade in general. We take such abuses extremely seriously.

“Where unauthorised use is made of the ETI logo or of copyrighted pictures on websites and brochures, we will not hesitate to take legal action if necessary.

“Our members demonstrate their commitment to ethical trade by their actions, not by making unsubstantiated claims to be ‘ethical’.”

He added: “The ETI Stone Group meets regularly to share best practice in tackling workers’ issues in the stone sector. We work closely with parallel organisations in the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia, whose members are importing often from the same sources, particularly in India and China.”

ETI member companies within the stone sector are: Marshalls, Brett Landscaping, BBS Granite Concepts, DNS Stones, London Stone Paving, Natural Paving Products, Unique Building Products, Pavestone and Stone Masters.