Sustainability was also a key agenda item at five
of our Executive Committee meetings and our
Sustainability Steering Committee comprises five
Executive Committee members. Alongside this
we took the decision to incentivise our senior
managers against a sustainability target.
We improved our transparency: 21 of our markets
published their own annual Sustainability Report
and by 2015, all of our majority-owned businesses
will have done so.
As I point out each year, transparency also means
being honest when we fall short of our own or
others' expectations. The inclusion of our new
Mexican business in 2010 was primarily responsible
for an increase in the number of fatalities to 14.
We believe that a single fatality is one too many
and our sympathies go out to the family, friends
and colleagues of those we lost in 2010. We will not
accept the loss of life of any individual working on
our behalf. We will continue to focus on accident
prevention through education and ever more
stringent safety policies in the coming years.
We were also disappointed that for the first time
in four years, Heineken was not ranked as one of
the top five beverage companies within the SAM
Dow Jones Sustainability Index. It is our intention
to return to the ranking and we believe that by
delivering our Brewing a Better Future
commitments, we will do so.
But we were also proud of the recognition we
received for our efforts. At the end of the year
we were invited by the United Nations to become
an inaugural member of Global Compact LEAD,
a group of leading, sustainable enterprises that
are asked to set new, higher benchmarks for
sustainability. In September, our groundbreaking
sustainable supply chain initiative in Sierra Leone
won a World Business and Development Award
from the United Nations Development Programme
and our continued membership of FTSE4Good was
confirmed. We also made another major step in
our support of African development by doubling
our investment in the Heineken Africa Foundation
to EUR20 million. This means we now have a
minimum of EUR1 million per year available for
health-related projects across our African markets.
We cannot undertake our journey alone. We believe
that there is much we can learn and much we can
share with others on these issues. It is through
greater co-operation that we will move faster and
go further. But we also need feedback. So please
contact us and continue to let us know how we are
doing, and what we can do better. It is only with
input on your expectations that we can ensure we
are on the right track to Brewing a Better Future.
I thank you, our business partners, NGOs, our
consumers, our employees and other stakeholders
for taking this journey with us. Most of all, I look
forward to what we will accomplish together.
Jean-Frangois van Boxmeer
Chairman of the Executive Board/CEO
Amsterdam, 31 March 2011
Sustainability Report 2010
