Sustainability governance

Our management approach

The board of directors is ultimately responsible for oversight of Tiger Brands' sustainability performance, as well as the company's code of ethics and anti-corruption and anti-bribery policies.

The social, ethics and transformation (SET) committee assists the board in monitoring and ensuring that matters relating to organisational ethics, responsible corporate citizenship, sustainable development and stakeholder relationships are effectively managed. On the board's behalf the SET has monitored the development of the code of ethics and a culture of ethical leadership in the group. The workplans for these committees ensure that the board has applied its minds to various material sustainability issues. The SET mandate also covers:

  • Promoting equality, preventing unfair discrimination, contributing to community development and monitoring the company's activities in terms of relevant legislation and prevailing code of best practices; and
  • Overseeing Tiger Brands' transformation objectives and broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) activities.

The risk and sustainability committee provides strategic guidance and leadership on environmental issues and oversees implementation and revision of our environmental policy (available on the Tiger Brands website). Operational execution of the strategy and management of the environmental system rests with the group manufacturing excellence department.

Our environmental strategy is focused on improving environmental performance in key areas, shown below, and forms the framework for addressing identified priorities in our current organisational and external environment. Our environmental control system covers:

  • Policies and procedures
  • Responsibilities and accountabilities for environmental management
  • Reporting
  • Environmental legal compliance
  • Waste, water, energy, pollution, recycling, climate change management
  • Continuous improvement
  • Monitoring and performance measurement of systems.

Ethical behaviour and good governance

All Tiger Brands employees subscribe to our code of ethics which prohibits any form of discrimination and contains guidelines on making ethical decisions. We are committed to an environment of mutual trust and respect which is free from discrimination based on gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, age, religion, marital status, sexual orientation or disability and should respect human rights and provide equal opportunities. Such an environment also forbids any forms of sexual harassment.

Anti-corruption and anti-bribery

Tiger Brands is committed to ensuring that its principles on ethics are implemented across the company. Any acts of bribery and corruption are strictly prohibited, and we have a zero-tolerance approach to any action that goes against the code. The anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy prohibits facilitation payments, and our code of ethics prohibits political donations. Payment for lobbying or facilitation payments are also not allowed. Our declaration of interest policy sets out situations that may constitute a conflict and provides for the mandatory declaration of any interest, which must be made annually or as soon as reasonably possible after the interest arises.

These policies and the code of ethics are published on our intranet. We also publish and display relevant articles and posters around our sites to further educate employees on corruption. Online learning (e-learning) for all employees above a specific management level is supported by training every two years with the next training cycle taking place in FY20. These ongoing initiatives are mandatory for all employees who might be at risk of corruption or bribery through the course and scope of their work.

Tiger Brands uses the services of Tip-offs Anonymous (a division of Deloitte), to give all employees, suppliers, customers, consumers (not for customer complaints) and members of the public the opportunity to do the right thing and anonymously report any dishonesty or fraud. Our whistle-blowing programmes are proactively communicated to employees and available in local languages. An independent reporting hotline is available 24/7 (for employees and third parties). Non-retaliation is part of the whistleblowing policy and addressed through legislation in South Africa.

All incidents reported to Tip-offs Anonymous are received by the internal audit and risk director and the chief legal officer. Reports are actioned within 24 hours and all investigations are supported by a formal investigative report issued to the relevant line manager and chief executive officer. Further internal controls are in place to mitigate against risks.

A quarterly ethics report is presented to the executive committee. The status of all cases is noted at this meeting and closed cases are formally agreed on. This report is also tabled at audit and SET committee meetings. Whistle-blowing reports are categorised into alleged corruption, fraud, human resources issues, human rights issues, theft and unethical behaviour.


24/7
Independent reporting hotline

42
Whistle-blowing reports received in 2019




During FY19, 42 whistle-blowing reports were received: 39 were closed and 3 are currently under investigation (FY18: 54 reports – all closed, FY17: 60 reports – all closed).


Tax strategy

The group's tax objective is to protect and enhance shareholder value by achieving a sustainable tax result that complies with the tax laws in jurisdictions where we operate. We continuously observe the changing tax landscape across jurisdictions to ensure that we maintain the effectiveness of our tax framework. We have maintained our approach in aligning our tax framework within the context of the group's overall governance framework. We will not enter into any transactions that will compromise our commitment to comply with all tax laws, regulations and policies. We align our tax values and objectives to our corporate values and corporate social responsibility objectives to ensure that we uphold and protect our corporate reputation.

The company's effective tax rate is 29,7%.

Cybersecurity and protection of personal information

Tiger Brands values the security and privacy of the personal information held and processed by us. To this end, continuous enhancement and implementation efforts are under way to ensure sustainable compliance to the Protection of Personal Information Act 2013 (PoPIA) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation requirements, as well as to keep pace with the evolving cybersecurity and technology advancements. The chief privacy officer is responsible for ensuring continued compliance to the PoPIA requirements and reports progress to the board risk committee, in line with the committee's annual work plan.