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Reporting compliance violations

Provide effective grievance mechanisms to employees and stakeholders


Our commitment: Ensure that all employees and stakeholders can easily report possible compliance violations

Providing effective grievance mechanisms throughout our operations

Violations of our Code of Business Conduct and of our corporate policies cannot be tolerated. It is essential that any such breaches are reported, wherever they occur across our entire value chain, so that non-compliant activity can be eradicated or prevented. Employees and other stakeholders must also have access to remediation in relation to any abuses of labour and human rights.

Progress against our objectives


Our objectives Our results

By 2017: ‘Tell us’ communicated on all Nestlé market websites where legally possible. Markets implementing corporate best practices for managing, reviewing and investigating compliance complaints received through grievance systems.

By 2018: Markets conducting root-cause analyses for selected compliance cases using tools provided by headquarters.

By 2019: Review grievance systems’ effectiveness with internal and external stakeholders to define improvement opportunities.

By 2020: Grievance systems improvements implemented in pilot markets.

100% of Nestlé market corporate websites on which ‘Tell us’ communicated.

Root-cause analyses will be developed and shared with markets in 2018.

Review process in development.

Improvements will be implemented when review process is complete.


Nestlé Integrity Reporting System

The Nestlé Integrity Reporting System (IRS) enables our employees to report anonymously, via phone or an online form, any illegal or non-compliant behaviour they observe, as well as to seek advice or information on our practices.

Messages received through IRS in 2017 1,725
Number and % of cases closed 1506 (87%)
Number and % of cases substantiated 482 (32%)

‘Tell us’ system

‘Tell us’ is a communication channel run by Nestlé but managed externally that enables external stakeholders to report possible compliance and non-compliance issues against the Nestlé Corporate Business Principles or applicable laws. ‘Tell us’ has been made available to 7748 suppliers.

Subjects of messages received in 2017 Number of messages received in 2017
Compliance related  
Private-to-private bribery 6
Conflict of interest 19
Environmental sustainability 4
Discrimination 5
Harassment 12
Fraud 14
Quality and safety  19 
Supplier concerns/complaints  11 
Labour practices  35 
Leadership style  24 
WHO Code-related concerns 
Complaints about third parties, eg working conditions
Customer concerns/complaints  40 
Non-compliance related  
Consumer complaints 146 
General enquiries (campaign, donation requests, water issues, recruitment, etc.) and Others (advertisements, job-seeking, etc) 272 
Total 613

Further details can be found in our GRI Index (pdf, XX).