Materiality

Materiality - identifying key sustainability issues

We contract with an independent third party to conduct a thorough materiality assessment of our business. In that way, we can assure contributing stakeholders of complete confidentiality and full impartiality in the findings.

Materiality Assessment

We conduct a formal materiality assessment biennially to ensure we prioritize issues with the greatest impact on our business, communities and the environment, and those that matter most to our stakeholders. We conducted our most recent materiality assessment in 2022. The assessment was carried out through virtual engagement sessions with the participation of a total of 41 external stakeholders comprising representatives from multiple industry groups, including Government agencies, NGOs, academicians, partners and suppliers. 33 internal stakeholders comprising c-suites, senior management, management and non management employees responded to the assessment via questionnaires.

The results of our materiality assessments help us identify risks and opportunities and support our decision-making on where to focus our resources. The findings are fully integrated with the Nestlé Enterprise Risk Management process, to help give us essential short- and long-term visibility on key topics.

From a long-list of 21 material topics, the following 5 were identified by stakeholders as the most important:

• Food Quality and Safety
• Data Privacy and Security
• Integrity and Governance
• Halal
• Waste Management

Our Materiality Process

Our Materiality Matrix

As part of the assessment, material topics were benchmarked against relevant sustainability frameworks and ratings such as GRI 13: Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing Sectors 2022, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Food and Beverage Sector and the FTSE4Good Index, as well as our peers in the industry, to determine the topics that were of greatest relevance to our business. As a result, we identified two new topics, namely Data Privacy and Security, and Biodiversity. Following the review, we have generated the 2022 Materiality Matrix to reflect the current interests of Nestlé and our stakeholders as follows:

Our materiality assessment and matrix reveal that Food Quality and Safety, Data Privacy and Security, Integrity and Governance, Halal, and Waste Management are highly important to our consumers. In comparison to 2020, our stakeholders today place greater importance on Halal and Climate Change, while Waste Management has retained its position as relatively very high importance compared with other material topics.