18
OPERATIONAL REVIEW
FTSE4Good
Dow Jones
Sustainability Indexes
iiAiif i/crf
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
HEINEKEN N.V. ANNUAL REPORT 2008
Sustainability
Heineken is committed to sustainable business practices
as part of a long-term strategic framework that looks to act
beyond the financial year. We are aware of the important
role we play in society and in those communities in which
we operate. We therefore seek to run our business in a
responsible way, focusing on areas where we can make
a positive difference by engaging with stakeholders at a
local as well as international level.
We have focused our thinking and our actions around
areas where we can have a real impact on our business
environment and where the changing business environment
has a real impact on us. These focus areas are:
Energy: consumption and C02 emission
Water: consumption, waste water and discharge
Safety: of our employees and our installations
Agriculture: quality and availability of raw materials
Supply chain responsibility
Responsible beer consumption
Impact on developing markets.
In 2008, we began an internal review of all focus areas with
the aim of establishing a clear longer-term vision. We have
asked our key stakeholders to provide feedback, which we
will use as input to our internal discussions about the future
sustainability agenda. We will conclude this process in 2009.
At the same time, good progress has been made in the
promotion of Responsible Beer Consumption. The number
of partnerships we have established to combat alcohol
abuse has quadrupled since 2007. As part of these efforts
we launched the interactive international media campaign
(www.knowthesigns.com). Finally, we re-issued our Rules for
Responsible Commercial Communication and increased our
employee training and awareness.
We also continued the successful roll-out of our Supplier
Code. This has now been completed on a central level, in
Austria, Greece and Poland, whilst implementation in all
markets in Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe
has commenced. This includes the design of a new
mandatory audit tool which measures our suppliers'
compliance with the principles of the Code.
In 2008, we conducted a workshop on energy and climate,
aimed at significantly reducing our impact. At the same
time, we continued to invest in the energy efficiency of our
production facilities and to meet the target we have set of
15 per cent energy efficiency improvements by 2010
compared with 2002.
We are pleased that in 2008 our ongoing sustainability
efforts were recognised by our continued inclusion in the
Dow Jones Sustainability Index (first within our global
industry category) and through our membership of the
FTSE4Good Index.
Fleineken does not presume to have the answers to all the
questions surrounding sustainability but we are always
learning from other companies and organisations such as
the UN Global Compact, which play an important role in
bringing together companies that take their future and the
future of our planet seriously.