This website is no longer being updated. Please visit GBCHealth’s new website at: www.gbchealth.org.

MEMBER PROFILES

SABMiller

COMPANY OVERVIEW

HIV/AIDS Profile

SABMiller's Commitment to the reduction of HIV/Aids within our sphere of influence

Context
SABMiller is one of the world's largest brewers.  It is listed on the FTSE 100 index and has brewing interests or distribution agreements in over 60 countries across five continents, including North and Central America, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. We employ approximately 50 000 people across these continents.
The enormity of the pandemic, and its socioeconomic consequences, makes it a priority for SABMiller, both at an operational issue and in terms of its impact on our global reputation.

HIV/Aids forms an integral part of the sustainable development strategy as we extend our interventions beyond our own operations to other areas within our "footprint" or sphere of influence.

Operationally, the focus has been on Africa, where the cost and impact of HIV/Aids has the potential to be significant. As a result this has been an important human resource function. The prevalence of HIV/Aids is increasing in most countries in the world and the progression of the epidemic in Honduras, India and Russia is a concern.

SABMiller is committed to being at the forefront of the business response providing intellectually robust solutions to addressing this issue, throughout our sphere of influence and across our global operations.

This means being committed to managing and reducing the impact of HIV/Aids in order to:

  • Limit the suffering and loss that the pandemic generates for our own employees and in some cases within our value chain.
  • Address and manage the business risks that the company faces.
  • Have a positive influence on the communities in which we operate.
  • Share our learning with others. SABMiller is committed to sharing our expertise and developing synergies with NGO's, other corporates and governments with a view to collaboratively tackling HIV/Aids.
  • Protect and enhance our corporate reputation.


Objectives
1) The group-wide HIV/Aids Framework ensures that:

  • Minimum standards are implemented in high risk operations
  • Relevant legislative requirements are met
  • There is a credible level of consistency across the group, particularly in the treatment of employees who are HIV positive
  • There is sufficient flexibility for local solutions appropriate to the prevalence level in each market

2) Continue to manage the impact of HIV/Aids on our workplaces and employees, particularly through:

  • Education  and awareness
  • Behaviour and attitude change interventions
  • VCT programmes
  • Managed healthcare programmes
  • Treatment and reduction of Sexually Transmitted Infections
  • KAP surveys
  • Removing stigma and prejudice

3) Contribute to the reduction of HIV/Aids amongst the families of our employees by:

  • Effectively extending education, VCT and treatment to spouses and dependents of employees in Africa

4) Contribute to the reduction of HIV/Aids in our supply and distribution networks by:

  • Carrying out a risk analysis of HIV/Aids-related issues in our supply chain and distribution network
  • Developing interventions to address these issues
  • Measuring the effectiveness of these interventions

5) Contribute to the reduction of HIV/Aids in the communities in which we operate by making HIV/Aids prevention and management an integral part of our CSI strategy and projects.

6) Continue to work with others, to share knowledge and to initiate partnerships to further the reach of our programmes.

7) Continue to assess the cost and impact on the business, its sphere of influence and the market.

8) Continue to evaluate and monitor our HIV/Aids-related activities through:

  • Self-assessment against the HIV/Aids stairway
  • Assessment against specific KPIs.

What have we achieved?  Progress to date

The Workplace
The severity of the epidemic in Africa has necessitated an initial focus on this region where we have made significant progress and will continue to focus on this. We have high levels of employee participation in VCT programmes as well as registration on the managed health care programme. Managed health care including ART is provided for employees and their dependents. The education and awareness campaigns have been effective as well as peer education in influencing behaviour and attitude change. This is monitored through annual KAP surveys.

We also have excellent examples of where our businesses have initiated partnerships with local Governments and NGO's to provide testing and treatment to the communities in which they operate.

To assist in these efforts SABMiller employs a full time Group HIV/Aids manager.

Sharing our Experience with others
We became involved in the Commission for Africa and now Business Action for Africa in the UK in 2004. SABMiller is a member of both the GBC and SABCOHA and is committed to  making a contribution to the work they do through a collaborative approach.

SABMiller has received two commendations for its work on HIV/Aids, from the Global Business Coalition on HIV/Aids and from Oracle Business in the Community.

New dynamics
It is widely anticipated that some of the countries in which we operate outside Africa will experience epidemics which will have an impact on GDP and social infrastructure.  It makes sense to intervene with our own employees at this point, whilst prevalence levels are still low, in order to alleviate the scale and impact of the epidemic on the business in the future. Countries where there is an escalating epidemic include Honduras, India, China and Russia.

What do we aim to achieve?

We aim to position ourselves at the forefront of the business response providing intellectually robust solutions to addressing this issue, throughout our sphere of influence and across our global operations.

This means being committed to managing and reducing the impact of HIV/Aids within our sphere of influence in order to:

  1. Limit the suffering and loss that the pandemic generates for our own employees and  within our value chain.
  2. Address and manage the business risks that the company faces.
  3. Share our learning with others. SABMiller is committed to sharing our expertise and developing synergies with NGO's, other corporates and governments with a view to collaboratively tackling HIV/Aids.

Below are comments from some of our leaders in the fight against HIV and Aids.

Graham Mackay, Chief Executive, SABMiller plc
"SABMiller is committed to providing our employees and their dependants quality care and treatment especially in resource poor-areas throughout Africa. In the last year it has become clear that in the fight against HIV/Aids, prejudice has become the new challenge and we have focused our efforts on confronting this challenge head on."

Sue Clark, Corporate Affairs Director, SABMiller plc
"We at SABMiller, aim to be at the forefront of the business response to HIV and Aids. We aim to provide intellectually robust solutions and expertise in addressing all the key issues surrounding HIV and Aids. This is in both our operations as well as in our sphere of influence. This approach has led us to adopt a Group Global position on HIV/Aids.

There is commitment throughout the entire organisation to address HIV/Aids. Not only is it a significant business risk, it is also one of the greatest human tragedies of our time. We recognise our African heritage, and the size of our business operations in Africa, means that we have very specific responsibilities to tackle HIV/Aids on the continent. In addition to our ongoing efforts to maintain our high levels of participation in VCT and our treatment programme, we identified the exponential levels of success we can achieve if we are able to overcome the obstacles presented by prejudice and stigma."

Samuel Phillip Khage, National President: Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU), Shop Steward ABI
"As a key leader in this fight against HIV/Aids myself and my shop stewards led the way in voluntary testing and are committed to getting more of our spouses and dependants tested and, where necessary, start treatment. Treatment is paid for by the company. Our challenge is to fight prejudice and stigma in the workplace and communities. It is totally important to create an environment where employees and members can disclose their status without any fear or prejudice and believe you me, our company has done that. We as a union are proud to be associated with a company that was commended in 2004 and 2005 by the GBC."

Leso, Full time Counsellor and Educator, SABMiller Employee
"I am a true example of a person living positively with the virus and you can learn so much from me. HIV need not be a death sentence, but a beginning of a new chapter in one's life.
A chapter filled with love, compassion, renewed health and hope. With these possibilities, I know without a doubt that we can move on, but without action, we are doomed."

Our Vision to 2010

To continue to inculcate a group-wide approach to managing HIV/Aids which balances the need for consistency with the need to deliver appropriate local responses, relative to the prevalence levels in each country.

Specific Targets:

Africa

  • To continue to have an effective HIV/Aids prevention programme, based on education designed to initiate and support changes in behaviours and attitudes. The success of this will be reflected in KAP surveys indicating a positive change in behaviour and attitude.
  • To ensure that 100% of employees know their HIV status.
  • To continue to have a managed health care programme including ART in all countries and businesses.
  • To have no HIV/Aids-related deaths or employees having to be medically boarded as a result of HIV/Aids.
  • To have an environment which is free of stigma and negative attitudes towards people who are HIV positive.
  • To provide education to employees' spouses and dependents.
  • To continue to provide spouses and dependents with access to VCT and treatment; to have a significant number of spouses and dependents participating in VCT and a representative number on the managed health care programme.
  • To enter into partnerships with other stakeholders which will contribute to reducing the spread of HIV/Aids in communities.

Other Countries

  • In those countries where the epidemic is a concern, to minimise the impact of the epidemic through early and effective intervention.
  • To have each operating entity assess the HIV/Aids risk based on the SABMiller plc framework guidelines and develop and implement the appropriate response.

Going forward, SABMiller will continue in our commitment to addressing the challenges that HIV/Aids presents us with. We believe that our HIV and Aids work forms an integral part of our sustainable development efforts, and will in the long term contribute towards poverty reduction.

We recognise there is still much to be done to achieve the Millennium Development Goals but we are confident that our approach to sustainable development positions us to do so in the long term.