11.4.6 CSR policies and monitoring tools

In defining CSR policies, the surveyed companies commonly referred to their own code of conduct and/or international standards, namely the UDHR, the OECD MNE Guidelines, the Global Compact Principles and the MDGs. The Global Compact CEO Water Mandate has been endorsed by Akzo Nobel, DSM, Shell and Heineken.1 Furthermore, most companies reported that they are listed on the FTSE4 Good Index 2007 or the DJSI.

Different monitoring tools and instruments are used by companies to assess environmental issues. Regarding water use, the companies generally emphasised their compliance with local environmental law (mainly concerning waste water) and compliance with the company's own procedures on the safe handling, storage and disposal of hazardous waste. In addition, the compliance with the requirements of ISO 14001 or ISO 9001 was often mentioned as ensuring high standard Environmental Management Systems.

Another useful monitoring tool is to report on annual environmental complaints, non-compliances and penalties, and environmental incidents. These are data that can be easily monitored, verified and compared with previous years or similar types of companies.

Interestingly, the company Friesland Foods reported that it has developed a toolkit to calculate the environmental impact of new products and to identify the impact of planning on the number of purification treatment plants (Friesland Foods, 2006).

Akzo Nobel, one of the world's largest producers of chemicals, indicated that its ambition is to achieve sustainable freshwater management at all of its sites by 2015. Besides the intake of freshwater, the emission of contaminated water from its sites to surface waters may negatively impact freshwater resources and ecosystems. For this reason, the company measures quantities of freshwater consumption and the emission of Chemical Oxygen Demand in its effluent to surface water, and has if appropriate programmes in place to reduce its impact. In 2007, Akzo Nobel mapped all of its sites to determine if they are located in water sensitive areas (figure 11.3). The company stated that it is important to set priorities in the risk assessments of its sustainable water management at its sites. It reported that in the sustainable water pilot, 19 sites out of 31 investigated have been determined as having sustainable water use (Akzo Nobel, 2007; Pacific Institute, 2009, p.31; Smakhtin, 2004, pp. 10-16).

Heineken took a different approach. In 2007, it commissioned a study by Leiden University - focusing on its own production sites and selecting water management as a key parameter. Using a range of analytical tools, including the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), the study established the precise locations of Heineken's 154 production sites and matched them to protected areas listed by WDPA. Advanced software was used to combine these two pieces of information, producing a definitive map of sites relative to WDPA areas. Because water management is Heineken's primary biodiversity impact, the map was refined to plot all sites inside or up to 50 km from a recognised Ramsar wetland area (1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands). This exercise produced a definitive list of 108 sites located in or near WDPA areas. Of these, 14 did not have a waste-water treatment plant. The study has allowed Heineken to match both GRI indicators concerning biodiversity and to prioritise its waste-water management programme. The company is conducting feasibility studies into the construction of water treatment plants at all 14 production sites

(Heineken, 2007).