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
• Focus on research and innovation, which will ultimately
provide the products that will drive Nestlé’s business model
from food and beverage to nutrition, health & wellness,
continues to increase. Nestlé should consider providing
more information on the management, and performance,
related to associated material issues such as patents, animal
testing and clinical trials.
• As per previous years, Nestlé’s reporting on employee data
covers approximately 84% of its employees (which
represent those covered by its central reporting system).
Nestlé should therefore consider consolidating its reporting
systems to ensure the completeness of reporting on its
employee data globally, and that CSV reporting is
representative of its entire workforce.
• With Nestlé’s ‘Tell Us’ grievance mechanism Nestlé should
consider its communication channels and the accessibility
of the ‘Tell Us’ system, particularly for stakeholders in its
upstream supply chain.
• Reporting on impacts of global initiatives could be
standardised across markets and strengthened at the centre
level. This is to ensure consistent data collection, collation
and reporting across markets and operations.
Findings and conclusions concerning adherence
to the AA1000 principles of Inclusivity, Materiality
and Responsiveness, and specified performance
information
Inclusivity 4 – At the global level, Nestlé’s on-going
programme of stakeholder convenings involving NGOs,
government, academia and investors, continues to provide the
business with valuable stakeholder insight on its CSV strategy
and activities. In 2015 this has been further extended by
engaging with specific stakeholders on key issues and focus
areas throughout the proceedings of the convenings. At the
local level, there remains scope for Nestlé to improve its active
engagement with local stakeholders – as opposed to global
stakeholder group representation – to capture issues and
feedback at this level.
Materiality 5 – Nestlé has used the same materiality
determination process which was used in 2014, as it was
deemed to continue to be appropriate and relevant to the
business. We believe that this process continues to be relevant
and is therefore representative of Nestlé’s material issues in 2015.
As per our commentary in 2014, Nestlé should ensure that
topics and aspects related to its evolving business model
towards nutrition, health and wellness are captured in its
process. Also, in the prioritisation of material issues, Nestlé
should consider incorporating regulations and compliance
requirements in the materiality scoring criteria for aspects that
require continuous monitoring, robust management and
regulatory reporting.
4 Inclusivity is the participation of stakeholders in developing and achieving an accountable
and strategic response to sustainability.
5 Materiality is determining the relevance and significance of an issue to an organisation
and its stakeholders.
6 Responsiveness is the extent of an organisation’s response to stakeholder issues and is
realised through decisions, actions and communication with stakeholders.
Responsiveness 6 – Nestlé remains responsive to stakeholder
concerns through its CSV report and continues to disclose the
key recommendations made by stakeholders during the annual
stakeholder convenings. It is recommended that Nestlé also
reports its response to key stakeholder concerns and issues
raised to indicate the actions that will be taken to address them.
Specified performance information – As with previous
reporting cycles, Nestlé has continued to produce reliable data
for its reporting on Safety, Health and Environment (SHE)
through its internal data capture and reporting system. SHE
data is well managed owing to a high degree of control at a
global level with appropriate checks to ensure consistency and
veracity. Attention should be given to improving the data
collection process for other key performance data sets such as
Responsible Sourcing, Transport, both of which currently lag
the overall reporting period (2013 data reported in 2014). In
addition, market-level reporting on the impact of global
initiatives and programmes could be strengthened to ensure
consistency and accuracy.
Methodology
We undertook the following activities to inform our assurance
engagement:
• interviewed personnel at various levels throughout the
organisation at Nestlé’s head office in Vevey, Switzerland;
• conducted document reviews, data sampling and
interrogation of supporting databases and associated
reporting systems as they relate to selected content and
performance data;
• reviewed a selection of external media reports relating to
Nestlé and the food sector to evaluate the coverage of
topics within the CSV pages of the Nestlé website;
• reviewed a selection of market case studies featured within
the CSV report;
• reviewed the outcomes of Nestlé’s stakeholder engagement
activities in 2015; and
• • evaluated Nestlé’s public disclosures against the GRI G4
Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
Exclusions and limitations
Excluded from the scope of our work is the following:
• Data related to responsible sourcing and traceability of
Dairy ingredients, data related to responsible sourcing of
Hazelnuts, and data related to percentage of purchased
palm oil that is RSPO certified;
• Data related to number of violations involving rights of
indigenous people, suppliers with significant risks of forced
and compulsory labor, and suppliers who have undergone
human rights screening;
• Data related to Nestlé Professional product sales and
penetration;
• Information related to activities outside the defined
reporting period or scope;
• Company position statements (including any expression of
opinion, belief, aspiration, expectation, aim or future intent);
• Historic text which was unchanged from previous years and
did not relate to ongoing activities;
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