20 Report of the Executive Board
Operational review continued
meet the expectations of all of our stakeholders all
of the time. However, understanding their needs
through dialogue improves our decision-making and
helps us strike a better balance more of the time.
It is this philosophy that underpins our approach
to sustainability and to meeting our obligations as
a brewer. It was also a key driver behind our decision
at the start of 2007 to focus on the seven areas
where we as a business have the most impact on
society:
Energy consumption and CO emission
Waste water consumption and discharge
Safety of our employees and installations
Quality and availability of raw materials
Supply chain responsibility
Responsible beer consumption
Impact on developing markets.
Through focus, and the establishment of clear
targets in each of these areas, we drive the
continuous improvement in our sustainability
performance. In 2007 we took a significant step,
which reflected this philosophy and reinforced
our long-standing commitment to responsible
consumption, by becoming a founding company
member of the European Forum on Alcohol and
Health. This Forum brings together all stakeholder
groups at a European level and seeks to adopt
a multi-stakeholder approach to addressing alcohol-
related harm. In December 2007, we made a series
of commitments to the Forum which built on the
two pillars of our alcohol policy: adherence to
our alcohol and work programme, training in and
compliance with our internal Rules for Responsible
Commercial Communication and the Enjoy
Heineken Responsibly initiative. We are evolving
our approach to promoting the responsible
consumption of our products by developing
strategic alcohol partnership programmes in many
of our markets, designed to educate consumers
and spread the responsible consumption message.
Alongside the Forum, we continued our
participation in and membership of international
industry groups such as the International
Centre for Alcohol Policies (ICAP), Global Alcohol
Producers Group and the Brewers of Europe.
We also worked in local partnerships with other
non-industry stakeholders to address specific
issues associated with alcohol abuse.
In 2007, we began the roll-out of the Heineken
Supplier Code to our operating companies.
Although it is still too early to report specific
results, the first comments we received from
the relevant markets are promising. All our Group
suppliers - representing a purchasing value of
over €1.5 billion - have indicated that they are in
compliance with our Code and integration of the
Supplier Code in regular quality audits has started.
Like every energy consumer, we are facing the
global energy challenge: increased cost for fossil
fuels due to a larger demand and decreasing social
acceptance of C02 emissions. To curb the increase
of fuel consumption due to increased production,
we have set a long-term target to improve efficiency
of our energy consumption by 15 per cent in 2010
as compared to 2002. This target is integrated
in our Total Productive Management programme
and management systems, as a result of which the
energy performance of each individual brewery
is monitored on a quarterly basis.
Heineken N.V. Annual Report 2007
