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The multinational dairy business FrieslandCampina is reinforcing its CSR commitments with a code of conduct based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The code pledges the company, among other things, to eliminate corruption, child labour, forced labour and discrimination, and to respect the right of employees to join a trades union.
Its 20,000 employees worldwide are being asked to familiarise themselves with the code and apply it in their day-to-day work. The executive board has the job of ensuring the code is understood by staff members, compliance will be monitored annually, and findings will be notified to the audit committee and supervisory board.
The Netherlands-based company, which has annual revenues of about €8.1billion ($10.4bn, £6.7bn), has created a whistleblower procedure to go with the code. The procedure is being implemented this year and a third-party body will oversee its administration.
FrieslandCampina, which makes and markets milk, cheese, yoghurts, desserts and cream, was created in 2008 from the merger of two Dutch co-operatives, Friesland Foods and Campina. It has 15,300 member dairy farms in Benelux and Germany.
Last year it conducted, with KPMG, a detailed CSR review of its operations. The review produced the code and whistleblowing regime, as well as the appointment late last year of a CSR board with the job of converting FrieslandCampina’s corporate responsibility strategy and associated objectives ‘into practical measures’.
Board members include the chief executive Cees’t Hart and the sustainability manager Franc Reefman, who will be responsible for implementing a recent commitment to produce an annual CSR report from now on.
As part of its upgraded corporate responsibility commitment, the business has set other goals, including a target of relying solely on sustainably generated energy for its Dutch locations by 2020.
This year it began buying renewable energy from its member farmers, 25 of whom are supplying electricity from wind generators on their land. It aims eventually to achieve ‘climate neutral growth throughout the dairy chain’.
On product responsibility, it recently pledged to use 100 per cent certified cocoa by 2014 for its Benelux-made Chocomel, the Netherlands’ biggest chocolate milk brand. By the end of this year, ten per cent of the cocoa used in Chocomel will be certified by the Dutch body Utz. At present too little responsibly-produced cocoa is available to meet the full Chocomel requirement, but FrieslandCampina hopes this will change during the next two years.
The company will try to buy more sustainably produced raw materials across its range of ingredients during the next few years, in line with its newly stated aim of making its entire production chain sustainable.
FrieslandCampina has listed five areas in which it feels it can make a tangible contribution to society – community involvement, environmental care, employee engagement, sustainable agriculture, and health. On the last it has made some progress by introducing reduced fat or sugar ranges in many brands.
The code pledges the company, among other things, to eliminate corruption, child labour, forced labour and discrimination, and to respect the right of employees to join a trades union.
Its 20,000 employees worldwide are being asked to familiarise themselves with the code and apply it in their day-to-day work. The executive board has the job of ensuring the code is understood by staff members, compliance will be monitored annually, and findings will be notified to the audit committee and supervisory board.
The Netherlands-based company, which has annual revenues of about €8.1billion ($10.4bn, £6.7bn), has created a whistleblower procedure to go with the code. The procedure is being implemented this year and a third-party body will oversee its administration.
FrieslandCampina, which makes and markets milk, cheese, yoghurts, desserts and cream, was created in 2008 from the merger of two Dutch co-operatives, Friesland Foods and Campina. It has 15,300 member dairy farms in Benelux and Germany.
Last year it conducted, with KPMG, a detailed CSR review of its operations. The review produced the code and whistleblowing regime, as well as the appointment late last year of a CSR board with the job of converting FrieslandCampina’s corporate responsibility strategy and associated objectives ‘into practical measures’.
Board members include the chief executive Cees’t Hart and the sustainability manager Franc Reefman, who will be responsible for implementing a recent commitment to produce an annual CSR report from now on.
As part of its upgraded corporate responsibility commitment, the business has set other goals, including a target of relying solely on sustainably generated energy for its Dutch locations by 2020.
This year it began buying renewable energy from its member farmers, 25 of whom are supplying electricity from wind generators on their land. It aims eventually to achieve ‘climate neutral growth throughout the dairy chain’.
On product responsibility, it recently pledged to use 100 per cent certified cocoa by 2014 for its Benelux-made Chocomel, the Netherlands’ biggest chocolate milk brand. By the end of this year, ten per cent of the cocoa used in Chocomel will be certified by the Dutch body Utz. At present too little responsibly-produced cocoa is available to meet the full Chocomel requirement, but FrieslandCampina hopes this will change during the next two years.
The company will try to buy more sustainably produced raw materials across its range of ingredients during the next few years, in line with its newly stated aim of making its entire production chain sustainable.
FrieslandCampina has listed five areas in which it feels it can make a tangible contribution to society – community involvement, environmental care, employee engagement, sustainable agriculture, and health. On the last it has made some progress by introducing reduced fat or sugar ranges in many brands.
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