Creating Shared Value cared by Nestle`

Kamrun Nahar | Published: May 06, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: May 05, 2014 21:41:44

Naquib Khan

Nestle` Bangladesh will source the raw materials of its products from local farmers by training them to grow produces as per the company's specification, a senior official of the company said.
Nestle`, the global behemoth in nutrition, health and wellness has taken the new initiative in Bangladesh as part of its rural development programme under its corporate social responsibility or creating shared value (CSV) as the company terms it.
"Rural development is a new initiative that we started after getting the Standard Chartered-Financial Express Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) award 2010-11 along with our previous activities," Nestle` Bangladesh Limited Corporate Affairs Director Naquib Khan told the FE recently.
There are two parts of the rural development programme. One is to provide sanitation facilities for girls in rural schools which include construction of separate toilets to prevent drop outs of girls from education, said Mr Khan describing the programme.
Nestle` has constructed separate 21 girls' toilets in rural schools to reduce drop outs of girl students until 2013. The company has a target to construct three more toilets in 2014.
And another initiative is to source raw materials from local suppliers and farmers as per the specification of Nestle to reduce import dependence for the company's business sustainability and to ensure fair price for the farmers, he added.
Mr Khan said they want to establish direct linkage with local suppliers and farmers to collect their raw materials like rice and spices that they use in their food items as per the company's specification and also with an intention to provide fair price.
"It is our responsibility to develop the rural economy and create a win-win situation for our farmers. We have just started the programme last year by sourcing rice and this year we will collect spices," Mr Khan said adding : if we want to achieve the target of MDG 4 and 5, we need this kind of programme here.
The Millennium Development Goal 4 targets to reduce child mortality and Goal 5 to improve maternal health by 2015.
Mr Khan said for scaling up local sourcing Nestle needs to work with the farmers and suppliers for their capacity building.
"If we consider the business sustainability, we cannot depend on imports. We must have local source for competitive price and advantage. This is also part of the development of the rural areas," Mr Khan elaborated. Terming the initiative a huge task, he said Nestle` has just started the programme nominally which will be ultimately scaled up to improve the local supply chain exploring right partners of suppliers/farmers/NGOs to work with. In 2014, the company will pilot the initiative of training the farmers about right utilization of fertilizer & seeds and start working with rice and wheat producers.
In Nestle`, the term CSR is referred as Creating Shared Value (CSV) which is one of their global business strategies and is not directed towards profitability.
CSV is creating value for our shareholders and society by doing business in ways that specifically help address global and local issues in the areas of nutrition, water and rural development. The company proactively identifies opportunities to link the core business activities to action on related social issues. CSV is built upon fundamental commitments to society.
With aims to address nutritional concerns and sustain the country's present trend of gradually decreasing nutritional deficiencies, Nestlé Bangladesh implemented the global Nestlé Healthy Kids (NHK) model in Bangladesh in April 2010 in the Sreepur Factory area in Gazipur.
"Today we have implemented the nutrition awareness programme in 22 schools in Gazipur, reaching over 18,000 school children," Mr Khan said.
The programme, designed for children between the ages of 13 to 17 years - an age group that can act as catalyst to take their nutritional learning to their family members at home, consists of six modules and is of a six week duration. The programme educates school students on good food habits, nutritional deficiencies, food related disorders, food hygiene, and techniques to safeguard the nutritional value of food during preparation.
Nestle will enrol another 3000 kids in the NHK programme in 2014 who will share their knowledge with another 15,000 kids in Gazipur.
Nestle also provides water tanks in schools in Gazipur under Nestlé Clean Drinking Water project. Since the inception of the project in 2006, over 43,000 students in those areas are directly being benefited from these facilities. With every Nestlé Clean Water education becomes a part of the school curriculum to teach students about the importance of clean water, the need for conservation and the link between clean water, hygiene, health and wellness.
Nestle has constructed 38 water tanks to provide clean drinking water to rural school children and around 3,500 students are provided with water training. In 2014, the company will build another five water tanks and provide training to 500 students.
While his attention was drawn to his feelings about the CSR award, Mr Khan said the feeling was great to receive the prestigious CSR award in 2012. Because Nestle does lots of things but it was Standard Chartered-Financial Express CSR Award that recognised them for the first time.
"The award has increased our responsibility and motivated our thought process and diverse our thinking. From that perspective we call it CSV meaning value creation for both the company and the society," he said.
To Mr Khan, any recognition is good. Because CSR does not mean some donation only but it has to meet some prior conditions like compliance, corporate governance, regular payment of taxes and above all be a good citizen. To him, a company can think of CSR activities only after fulfilling these conditions.
"You have to think about three Ps-people, planet and profitability. You have to be compliant and environmentally sustainable to carry out CSV," he added.
Regarding challenges in carrying out CSR activities, Mr Khan said till date they faced no kind of problem from neither the government nor the community. The company also does not do CSV for tax benefit.
"To us CSV means shared responsibility along with the government. Sometimes the government cannot work alone and private sector needs to come forward to address various social issues," he said.