Nestlé in society Creating Shared Value and meeting our commitments 2015

Nestlé in society:
Creating Shared Value
Nutrition, health
and wellness
Rural development
Water
Environmental
sustainability
Human rights
and compliance
Our
people
G4-EC7, Procurement practices G4-DMA, Supplier environmental assessment G4-DMA, G4-EN33, Supplier assessment for labor practices G4-DMA,
G4-LA15, G4-HR10, G4-SO9, G4-SO10
Tackling abuses in the seafood
supply chain
Our mandatory Nestlé Supplier Code and RSG on Fish and
Seafood require all of our suppliers to respect human rights and
to comply with all applicable labour laws. To reinforce this, Nestlé
is taking action to eliminate labour and human rights abuses in
the seafood supply chain. In 2015, we commissioned Verité, an
NGO that works with companies to help understand and tackle
labour issues, to investigate allegations of abuses in the Thai
fishing industry. They collected information from fishing vessels,
ports, mills and farms in Thailand on a range of issues, including
trafficking, forced and underage labour, lack of grievance
procedures, workplace conditions, and wages and benefits.
Following Verité’s investigation we have launched an action
plan on seafood sourced from Thailand, which takes into
account their recommendations. Focused on 10 key activities,
the plan contains a series of actions, designed to protect
workers from abuses, improve working conditions and tackle
unacceptable practices, including juvenile and teenage
working. Those actions include establishing a migrant
workforce emergency response team, setting up a grievance
mechanism, providing training for captains and boat owners
operating in the industry, raising awareness about minimum
required labour standards, establishing better traceability of
raw materials and enabling verification of labour standards in
fishing vessels.
The action plan was published in November 2015 and
immediately put into place. It will continue to be rolled out
throughout 2016, with a dedicated manager being based in
Thailand to oversee its implementation. Alongside the Thai
Government, local seafood suppliers and international buyers,
we also continue to participate in the multi-stakeholder ILO
Working Group, which is seeking collaborative solutions to
improve labour conditions in Thailand’s complex seafood
export industry.
Another not-for-profit partner, Ocean Outcomes (formerly
the Wild Salmon Center), promotes the conservation and
sustainable use of marine ecosystems across the Pacific Rim,
and has made good progress on its Salmon Fishery
Improvement Projects (FIPs) in Russia. The group has
launched two Salmon FIPs on the remote Kamchatka
peninsula, in the Russian Far East. Now, more than 50% of
Kamchatka wild salmon fisheries are Marine Stewardship
Council certified, in assessment or in a FIP.
The Government agency in Russia that controls salmon
hatcheries has expanded its marking programme at all
Government-run hatcheries to cover 100% of fish released.
A team of independent observers completed a season in the
field in western Kamchatka and found no cases of illegal
activity in the commercial fishery, although one case of river
poaching was discovered and reported.
Tracking a seafood supply chain in the open ocean is a difficult
process. However, our ambition is to confirm that the fish and
seafood we source come from healthy fisheries or from
fisheries and farms engaged in improvement projects.
We are able to track about 60% of our whole fish purchases
to the catch vessel. From there, our expert marine not-for-profit
partner, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, provides assessments
on the source fisheries. Some 90% of the purchased seafood is
by-product used for nutritious pet food products. We trace this
product to as many source fisheries as have been identified –
which is now up to 153 fisheries. Some 52% of these known
fisheries are considered medium risk or better.
Nestlé in society – Creating Shared Value and meeting our commitments 2015 136