Vision
Heineken's core values – respect, enjoyment and a passion for quality – help define our corporate culture and working methods. They are fundamental to the way in which we do business today; they support our drive towards economic, environmental and social sustainability. These three dimensions are strategically important for the long-term success of Heineken.
Operating companies across the group share our values and principles. They are embedded in our corporate culture, policies and daily activities. They guide our actions and determine the boundaries of our behaviour.
We believe in the importance of dialogue. Only by being transparent about our performance and open to the concerns, insights and experiences of others, we can better understand our business environment, which will allow us to identify and face our challenges and opportunities.
Governance
Heineken has always had a drive to excel. We defined our core value, ‘passion for quality’, right at the start of our company, some 140 years ago. We believe we should do the right thing in the right fashion. To achieve this objective in the area of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, we have implemented a governance structure that is described in this section.
The CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board is responsible for our corporate responsibility and sustainability strategy. To support a balanced decision-making process, the CSR Advisory Board was installed and includes the Regional Presidents for Western Europe and Africa & Middle East, the Group Directors of Group Supply Chain, Group Commerce, Group Human Resource, Group Legal, Group Corporate Relations and Group Finance and is chaired by the Chairman of the Executive Board. The Committee’s tasks include:
- advise the Executive Board on strategy and priorities in the area of CR and sustainability
- encourage cross fertilisation among Group departments on sustainability issues
- identify CR and sustainability aspects within the activities and policies of Group departments
- advise the Executive Board on priorities, content and approach of policies
- determine the level of involvement of Group departments in the CR policy process
- monitor the coherence and consistency of CR policies and practices
- review results
On operational level, our Group Corporate Relations Director holds final responsibility for our corporate responsibility agenda, which is managed and executed on a day-to-day basis by the Corporate Affairs and Corporate Relations teams.
The diagram below summarises our governance structure.
The CSR Advisory Board’s most important task is to define the main areas of focus for our corporate responsibility agenda and developing interventions that will lead to improved company performance in these areas. Measuring, benchmarking and stakeholder dialogue all help the CSR Advisory Board determine our priorities.
Policies and other interventions are implemented in our operations and their impact is measured and analysed. To assess their effectiveness, the CSR Advisory Board works closely with Group Internal Audit.
The diagram below summarises our CSR planning cycle.
Our governance process enables us to respond coherently at our corporate centre to real concerns raised by our stakeholders, taking into account the opinions of all relevant departments and operating companies. The process also allows us to embed corporate responsibility initiatives in our Group functional agenda.
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