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Brew a Better World 2030 Strategy - Foundation
Respecting human rights in our
value chain
Brew a Better World 2030 Strategy
Environmental
Social
Responsible
Disclosures
Reporting basis of non-financial indicators
Introduction Context
Introduction
Learn more about Human Rights on our website
b
Foundation
Sustainability
Review
Other
Information
Financial
Statements
Report
of the
Supervisory
Board
Report
of the
Executive
Board
In 2023, we delivered training in Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), Burundi and Nigeria. Over 2,300
private security staff have been trained in 2023 -
more than 3,500 since the implementation of this
training - and a pre- and post-training survey has
been set up to ensure we monitor the impact of
each session.
Human rights supplier due diligence
Our impact on human rights can occur wherever we
operate - including through the activities of our direct
suppliers and their own suppliers. We are committed
to conducting business with integrity and fairness and
with respect for people, the law and our values. We
expect our suppliers to do the same as stated in our
Supplier Code.
Our Supplier Code compliance procedure is
implemented across all our operating companies
worldwide with a compliance score of 98% in 2023.
We also pursued our journey for improving our
supplier risk management process.
We take responsibility for human rights impacts
arising from our business activities across the entire
value chain - from the farms on which our raw
materials are grown to the disposal of our waste.
On top of this systemic suppliers screening, we
proceed with enhanced human rights due diligence
of our suppliers. For instance, as part of the Distell
business acquisition in South Africa, we performed
a series of risk assessments of outsourced service
providers and some key suppliers, further up in our
value chain. For the assessments performed, we are
tracking closure of the issues identified. Follow-up
reviews will be conducted where required depending
on the severity of the cases.
We ensured that affected employees were offered
lodging, financial assistance and emotional support.
Following a comprehensive review, HEINEKEN Brazil
terminated business relations with the supplier and
as well as for the performance evaluation of our
existing suppliers. This approach covers financial,
compliance, environmental and human rights risks.
So far, we have covered nearly 4,000 of our direct
suppliers and we plan to complete the assessment of
our 40,000 supplier-base by the end of 2025.
Despite our commitment and the management
systems in place, we must sometimes manage cases
of non-compliance among our suppliers. In March
2021, HEINEKEN Brazil was made aware of labour
violations by one of its transportation service providers
involving transportation employees servicing
HEINEKEN Brazil and others. These practices were
in clear breach of the HEINEKEN Supplier Code and
swift disciplinary action was taken.
implemented a more rigorous supplier governance
process in addition to maintaining stringent
enforcement of its Supplier Code of Conduct.
We invested locally approximately €3.6 million to
establish new facilities at all its breweries to cater to
the needs of truck drivers during shipment drop-offs
and pick-ups.
Raising awareness at farms level
As a food and beverage company, we rely on our
agricultural value chain and its many farmers to
deliver our raw materials. Working conditions for farm
workers can vary significantly. In 2023, we
collaborated with Partner Africa, a company
specialising in social compliance, to develop a training
toolkit to encourage and support farmers in Africa we
source directly from. The toolkit aims to raise
awareness of local legislation and HEINEKEN
expectations on working conditions. It will increase
visibility of potential issues through training and farm
self-assessments, as well as providing tools and
templates to support sustainable improvements at
farm level. The toolkit was piloted in Nigeria and the
Republic of Congo in 2023. To ensure it would fit
farmers’ needs, we engaged with a small group to get
their feedback. We adapted the content of the toolkit
based on their inputs and plan to roll it out in all
markets in Africa where we directly source our
agricultural raw materials in 2024.
See our SMART Outsourcing programme to
understand what else we do to assess human rights
risks of on-site suppliers’ employees and to ensure
proper living and working conditions.
We have also provided face-to-face trainings to
around 40 people from our direct supplying farms in
South Africa, one of our largest markets. This training
took place within three of our facilities and offered a
deep dive into our supplier code and human rights
policy to clarify expectations, roles and responsibilities.
To ensure we prioritise the rights of local communities,
improvements include enhanced rights holders
engagement such as landowners, tenants, informal
settlers to evaluate multiple parameters relevant to
the responsible acquisition of new sites. This process
ensures that we assess and understand the potential
impacts of projects on local communities and the
environment to inform business decision and shape
action plans when needed to prevent or mitigate any
potential adverse impacts.
To find out what else we do to support local
communities, please see Positive impact in our
communities
Human rights in local communities
In 2023, we extended and strengthened our processes
and controls around land rights due diligence for
greenfield projects to assess environmental and
human rights impacts.
Within one specific project, which ran in 2023, we set
up in-house a community liaison officer role as part of
our grievance mechanism process to ensure we stay
connected with the local communities.
Heineken
N.V.
Annual
Report
2023
We built on the pilot run in 2022 and the new solution
tested allowed us to perform an extended screening
of our new suppliers as part of the selection process
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