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Creating Shared Value Report 2007

This 7 minute film was shown to our shareholders at the Annual General Meeting held in April 2008. Within it our Chairman and former CEO, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, explains how Creating Shared Value is practised in our business. The following is an excerpt from the Chairman's statement and explains the concept in more detail: 

Henri Nestlé founded our company in 1866 on a single product, an infant cereal, which was created to save the life of a neighbor’s child. From that time onwards, the fundamental strategy of our company has been to create value for society, and in doing so create value for our shareholders.

As a result of this strategy, over the past 141 years Nestlé has grown from a small family-owned business to become the world’s foremost nutrition, health and wellness company.

However, Creating Shared Value for society and investors means going beyond consumer benefit. The very first edition of the Nestlé Corporate Business Principles stated that: "Our investments must be good for the company and for the countries where we operate."

Creating Shared Value also means bringing value to the farmers who are our suppliers, to our employees, and to other parts of society. It means examining the multiple points where we touch society and making very long-term investments that both benefit the public and benefit our shareholders, who are primarily pension savers or retirees.

Over a period of decades, we have worked with millions of milk and coffee farmers to make them better suppliers, and in so doing, have helped them to climb out of poverty and to prosper. Today, we work with about 600,000 farmers globally, providing free technical assistance, infrastructure and over CHF 29.9 million of micro-credit loans. About half our factories are in rural areas in the developing world, and have a profound impact on family income, quality of life, and the future for the next generation.

Creating Shared Value additionally means treating the environment in a way that preserves it as the basis of our business for decades, and centuries, to come. Ending dangerous trends in air and water pollution and mismanagement is basic to our being able to sustain a growing food and beverage business. We all share one home - planet earth - and the future of our business is inextricably linked to the future of the planet.

Creating Shared Value means thinking long term, while at the same time delivering strong annual results. One of the fundamental Nestlé Corporate Business Principles is that "We will not sacrifice long-term development for short-term gain".

Read the full Chairman's Statement.