Nestlé is committed to enabling healthier and happier lives for our employees, our communities, and our society. Read about our long-standing support of human rights.

Human rights is one of the central pillars of our approach to Creating Shared Value for all Nestlé stakeholders and for society as a whole. This concern for society focuses on enabling healthier and happier lives for individuals and families, on helping the development of thriving and resilient communities, and finally, on stewarding the planet’s natural resources for future generations, with particular care for water.

Our Commitment: Assess and Address Human Rights Impacts in Our Operations and Supply Chain

Fundamental respect for the rights of the people Nestlé employs, does business with, and otherwise interacts with is at the core of our Corporate Business Principles (PDF).  We are firmly opposed to all forms of human rights violations or poor labor conditions across our value chain.

By upholding international human rights standards, Nestlé can make a positive impact on all our stakeholders.

Nestlé fully supports the United Nations Global Compact’s (UNGC) guiding principles on human rights and labor, and aims to provide an example of good human rights and labor practices throughout our business activities. Nestlé was one of the first companies to adopt the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) Reporting Framework, with which our human rights standards are aligned.

Helping Develop Thriving, Resilient Communities

According to the UN, 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty. More than 75% of them live in rural areas and depend on agriculture, including family small holdings, for their livelihoods. We aim to improve livelihoods and develop thriving communities. Driven by our company purpose to enhance quality of life and contribute to a healthier future, we have defined an overarching ambition which will guide our work toward achieving our 2020 commitments. Our 2030 ambition is to improve 30 million livelihoods in communities directly connected to our business activities.

FYI: We are framing our Creating Shared Value (CSV) agenda closely with the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What We’ve Achieved

We take our responsibility very seriously to respect human rights across our business activities and to perform to the highest ethical standards; our commitments require real action to address issues, from forced labor and gender inequality to corruption.

In 2015, Nestlé identified 11 human rights that are at risk of the most severe impact on a global basis, and which the company has committed to addressing:

1. Freedom of association and collective bargaining
2. Working time
3. Workers’ accommodation and access to basic services
4. Safety and health
5. Living wage
6. Child labor
7. Forced labor
8. Land acquisition
9. Access to water and sanitation
10. Access to grievance mechanisms
11. Data protection and privacy

These salient issues affect various groups: our own employees; on-site contractors; suppliers (and, in particular, their employees); farmers and farm workers; local communities; and consumers, who are increasingly concerned with such issues. In 2016, new Action Plans were developed for nine of the 11 issues.

For example, in Thailand we embarked on a project (PDF) to eliminate human rights violations and encourage sustainable fishing. One year into the program, more than 99% of the seafood ingredients that Nestlé sources from its seafood supply chain in Thailand are traceable back to farms and catch vessels. Additionally, Nestlé, its seafood supplier, and Verité, an NGO (non-governmental organization) whose mission is to enhance human rights on a global basis, continue to work closely with the Royal Thai Government, Thailand’s Department of Fisheries, and the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center to develop a practical training program to educate vessel owners, boat captains, and crew members on living and working conditions (PDF) aboard a fishing vessel and on workers’ rights in Thailand.

Other activities of note:

• Completed the rollout of the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System to all Nestlé Cocoa Plan co-operatives in Côte d’Ivoire, and expanded into Ghana
• Trained 36,524 employees in anti-corruption
• Released the Nestlé Commitment on Labour Rights in Agricultural Supply Chains as an appendix to the Nestlé Supplier Code
• Continued to roll out our human rights training to countries at high risk for various types of human rights and other violations, training a further 9,573 employees in eight such countries in 2016. We have now trained 83,747 employees in 69 countries, including 10,967 employees in high-risk countries, since launching our online Human Rights Training Tool in 2011

Looking Ahead: Addressing Human Rights Impacts

Our public commitments are a result of our respect for individuals and families, communities, and the planet. These commitments align directly with our material issues. They drive continuous improvement and allow stakeholders to hold us to account for delivering on our promises.

In 2016 Nestlé introduced several new objectives for 2020 to help us achieve our commitments:

• Assess and address human rights impacts across our business activities
• Improve workers’ livelihoods and protect children in our agricultural supply chain
• Enhance a culture of integrity across the organization
• Provide effective grievance mechanisms to employees and stakeholders

Our specific goals for addressing human rights impacts stem from the Action Plans developed in 2016:

By 2017—Strengthen human rights mainstreaming into existing standards, audit protocols, and due diligence procedures, in particular for: our own facilities, including green- and brown-field projects; local communities; our business partners, including local distributors, co-manufacturers, joint ventures, etc; and mergers and acquisitions.

By 2018—Carry out six additional Human Rights Impact Assessments in countries where we have significant business operations.

By 2019—Have a functioning governance structure in place in all markets that looks after human rights risks
and opportunities.

By 2020—Train all Nestlé employees on human rights.

At Nestlé, human rights are closely aligned with thriving, healthy communities—enhancing rural livelihoods, respecting and promoting human rights, and promoting decent employment and diversity. We work hard to ensure that employees and our supply chains benefit from fair and decent working conditions, which improve livelihoods and make a positive impact on society.

^{Source: Nestlé in Society: Creating Shared Value 2016 (PDF)}

Additional Resources

Human Rights Impacts

Talking the Human Rights Walk (PDF)

Respecting Human Rights