Ethical supply chain practices
We are committed to promoting ethical supply chain practices, with the aim of promoting fair labour activities, ensuring animal welfare and mitigating the potential impacts associated with potentially high-risk raw materials such as palm oil and cocoa. We work with suppliers that are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to ensure the sourcing and processing of traceable and certified sustainable palm oil. We are concerned about deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and the use of peat lands, all associated with palm oil production on plantations. We work with RSPO-certified suppliers that can improve on this global body's existing principles and criteria to address these and other emerging issues.
We only source cocoa liquor and butter – important ingredients for our chocolate business – from suppliers certified by Fairtrade and the Rainforest Alliance, ensuring our supply chains are anchored by the principles and standards of sustainable production. Finally, we engage with government departments that have a bearing on our business and imminent legislative changes through facilitated discussion forums such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and manufacturing industry debates.
SUPPLY CHAIN
While our supply chain draws on most of our capitals, its key impact is on natural capital. Over the past three years, we have focused on reducing this impact through specific initiatives. We reviewed formulations to improve costs without affecting taste and quality, we actively researched and expanded sourcing programmes in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and we continued support to develop domestic farmers. We continue to refine our logistics network with selected partners to achieve cost efficiency and the highest standards of customer service.
ETHICAL SOURCING
Our ethical sourcing policy was approved by the board in 2018 and is being implemented throughout our supply chain. This policy addresses human rights within our supply chain and is available on our website, www.tigerbands.com. Suppliers are required to declare their commitment to comply to our ethical sourcing policy annually. Where deemed necessary, suppliers may be audited by Tiger Brands or an external party to verify compliance. For FY19, we issued compliance notifications to 208 suppliers which represents 73% of our procurement managed spend. We received signed commitments to comply to our ethical sourcing policy from 68% of suppliers, representing 43% of our procurement managed spend. We are following up with the suppliers who have not yet responded.
ETHICAL SOURCING DECLARATION TRACKER AS AT 30 SEPTEMBER 2019
| TOTAL | |||
| Number of notifications sent | 208 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage spend covered by notifications | 73% | ||
| Number of acknowledgements received | 141 | ||
| Percentage acknowledgements received | 68% | ||
| Total spend covered by acknowledgements | R5,2 billion | ||
| Percentage spend covered by acknowledgements | 43% |
HUMAN RIGHTS
Tiger Brands believes business can only flourish in societies where human rights are protected and respected. Equally, we recognise that business is responsible for respecting human rights and has the ability to contribute to positive human rights impacts.
This is an area of growing importance to our employees, workers, shareholders, investors, customers, consumers and communities where we operate and civil society groups globally. As such, there is both a business and moral case for ensuring human rights are upheld across our operations and our value chain (supply chain and service providers).
Our human rights policy was developed and approved during 2018, and is in the process of being implemented across our operations and supply chain. The policy will also be reviewed and further improved during FY20.
At group level, the policy establishes the principles and responsibilities for implementing, monitoring, reviewing and reporting human rights abuses in Tiger Brands. It has been developed to protect the group, its employees, assets, information, operations and reputation in the environment in which we operate and to ensure respect for human rights. It applies to all employees, temporary employees, contractors, service providers and consultants of Tiger Brands.
Human rights cases can be reported through the ethics line www.tip-offs.com, directly to the company, or identified by other means such as whistle-blowing or the media. Training on human rights has been included in our induction programmes for new employees, and awareness raised among all our employees through internal communication programmes throughout the year. Through our ethical sourcing policy, our suppliers have been requested to declare their acknowledgement and support for our policy, or that they have their own policies in place covering the requirements as set out in our policy.
No cases related to potential human rights issues were reported through our ethics line, and no allegations were reported through the media.
The human rights policy and ethical sourcing policy are available on our website, www.tigerbrands.com.