PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk

2014

Top CSR Advocates in Asia

PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk

Top CSR Advocates in Asia

2014

About Unilever INdonesia

“The company continuously improves its understanding of how business can maximise its social impact -improving livelihoods, health and the wellbeing of the community it serves while reducing the environmental impact of operations and protecting and improving the environment at every opportunity.”

PT. Unilever Indonesia TBK was established in Jakarta in 1933. A fast moving consumer goods (FCMG) company, it has more than 10,000 employees in Indonesia.

The success of the company’s business is highly dependent on its ability to attract and retain talented, qualified individuals to execute its strategies. Failure to do so could have serious implications for its competitiveness and growth.

Resource Committees have been established in each of the divisions and functions to identify future skill and capability needs, define career paths and professional training programmes, and undertake the remuneration benchmarking as well as identify key talent and future leaders. The company has in place an integrated people development programme which encompasses regular performance reviews and is underpinned by a set of Standards of Leadership behaviours, skills and competency profiling, mentoring, coaching and training. Employee satisfaction is measured through regular surveys.

The company’s top values are:

Integrity. It is committed to integrity because this creates its reputation, so they never compromise on it. It defines how employees behave, wherever they are. It guides them to do the right thing for the long-term success of Unilever.
Respect: It is committed to respect because people should be treated with dignity, honesty and fairness.
Responsibility. The company is committed to being responsible because it wants to take care of the consumers, customers and employees as well as the environment in the communities in which it operates.
Pioneering: The company is committed to the pioneering spirit because that is how it was created and is what still drives it as a business.

People management at Unilever Indonesia aims to ensure the attraction and retention of the best professionals in the country, investing in a healthy accident-free working environment that favours the development of its employees. Part of this ethos entails inspiring employees through CSR projects.

A CSR INSPIRATION

Unilever Indonesia has grown together with the people of Indonesia since 1933. Sustainability is the fundamental part of how it does business and brings comparative advantages in the market place. The company addresses sustainability across the entire value chain to provide the best benefits to the widest range of stakeholders – employees, business partners, customers, consumers and the communities it serve.

They believe that by addressing sustainability issues, the whole operation from the conception of its products and sourcing raw materials through production, consumption, and disposal will provide benefits to society and business development opportunities. The company continuously improves its understanding of how business can maximise its social impact – improving livelihoods, health and the wellbeing of the community it serves while reducing the environmental impact of operations and protecting and improving the environment at every opportunity.

Unilever’s global commitments on sustainability are driven by Unilever Indonesia according to the following programme pillars:

They engage the community to improve their health and wellbeing through two main channels, a School Programme that aims to educate school aged children from kindergarten to senior high level; and a Community Health Programme which encompasses a Mothers’ Programme, a Healthy Village and Healthy Market Programme.

Unilever Indonesia is very committed to meeting the global agenda of halving the environmental foot print. At the ground level, Unilever Indonesia works hand in hand with the community to reduce waste while receiving economic benefits. Unilever Indonesia and the community established the community waste bank which started with 20 banks in Surabaya. This grew to 712 banks by 2013 and is still escalating. The programme is located in the 10 most populated cities in Indonesia and involves more than 20 million people. In 2014, the number of waste banks is expected to reach 885 in total.

This programme is part of Unilever’s commitment to have 100 percent of its agricultural raw materials come from sustainable sources, at the same time enhancing the livelihood of smallholder farmers and those along the value chain. Unilever Indonesia has been working with not less than 9,000 black soya bean smallholder farmers. The collaboration has been extended to almost 600 coconut sugar farmers. Programmes include: a Farmer Development Program on Black Soya Bean, Coconut Sugar, Farmer Field School, Women Farmer Empowerment Programme. Unilever Indonesia also promotes the application of safety and hygiene to facilitated farmers.

Unilever Indonesia enhances collaboration with relevant stakeholders such as government at the national and local level; NGOs, particularly local-based organisations; university or research institutes as well as media.

NGO Partners: Unilever Indonesia believes that local NGOs have strong links within their local context. They support the programmes established by NGOs, management and implementation as well as monitoring. As partners, the NGOs provide training to their communities and, at the same time, build strong relationships with local government. Unilever Indonesia has established a strong coordination partnerships with NGOs through regular communication and sharing of best practices.

Partnerships

Unilever Indonesia works in partnership with other organisations to consistently promote the programme in the following ways.

Technical Training: Community programme Committee and Staff are selected, and they are given technical training on setting up and managing the bank including establishing links to ensure access to the market. (For example, from waste collector to waste dumping). They set up the system of the banks, from managing customers, to the accounting system to pick up and weighing schedules.
Develop and manage the community system and programme.
Monitor and Evaluate: Evaluation of performance, beneficiaries, areas and training reports, budgets and so on are done every quarter. Evaluation is continued regularly.
Local Government: they are engaged for policy, programme and overall support.
Media: Unilever Indonesia believes that media is a strong channel to disseminate its best practices and inspire people. Current media accelerates information sharing, therefore Unilever Indonesia maintains a good relationship with media.
Academic and Research Institutions: universities and research centres provide accurate and transparent monitoring and evaluation of the program.

Indicators & Evaluation Framework

The waste bank program is evaluated based on the annual increase in the number of customers and beneficiaries and the type and total tonnage of waste collected.

Evaluation methods

Unilever and its NGO partners conduct monthly conference calls for progress updates and evaluation. NGO partners submit monthly progress reports and quarterly programme reports. Unilever and NGO partners update the database monthly. Academic and research institutions are engaged to perform third-party evaluation of the programme. The financial system is required to be up to Unilever’s standard of procedures and is monitored by procurement, finance and the audit division.

With this campaign and programme penetration it is believed that these messages can resonate more deeply with the community and the challenges they face when they are associated with a brand they know and trust. Unilever Indonesia’s brand and social missions therefore have the potential to make a real impact on issues that matter to its consumers and to Indonesian society as a whole.