Living in our communities

We support the communities in which we operate.

We are very much aware of the importance of the quality of the connection we make with the communities we operate in. We depend on them in many ways: we hire our employees from local communities, we need local licences and community endorsement to operate, we use community infrastructure and very often suppliers live close to our production facilities. Our Manufacturing Operating Companies have implemented a variety of practices around the world to enable us to better connect with those communities.

Our Manufacturing Operating Companies have always applied their own local practices to connect with the local communities they operate in. Out of the 15 countries with manufacturing presence, 12 connected with their communities in 2016.

There is much diversity in the policies and practices in place. Our operations in Spain, Sri Lanka and The Netherlands have a community investment policy while our operations in the USA, Brazil and Italy have a history of organising annual events. The remaining Manufacturing Operating Companies apply an ad-hoc approach to connect with their local community.

Read more details in our Group CSR Report (PDF 10MB).