2005 annual report and Form 20-F
Her personal service and caring nature have gained her the loyalty and respect of local mail customers.
Hanna Rave-Loupatty Post Delivery Person, TNT Post, Netherlands
Business Principles and social Responsibility
Below are our revised TNT Business Principles, which we seek to comply with in everything we do, as well as a description of our social responsibility policy and partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme.
TNT BUSINESS PRINCIPLES
We are committed to sound business conduct and we therefore manage our business according to our company standards and these TNT Business Principles.
We also support the principles of the United Nations Global Compact on human rights, employment standards, the environment and anti-corruption.
PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE OUR COMPANY
Legal and international regulations
We comply with the laws, rules and regulations of the countries in which we conduct business.
Public reporting and communication
Our financial statements, public reporting documents and other public communication provide full, fair, accurate, timely and understandable disclosure of TNT’s position in accordance with relevant laws and generally accepted accounting principles and standards.
We comply with all applicable laws and accounting rules, financial reporting requirements and requirements of the securities exchanges on which TNT is listed.
We maintain open and transparent communication with our customers, employees, shareholders and society, while giving due respect to confidentiality.
Public activities
We do not intervene in party political matters, nor do we make gifts or donations to political parties.
Where it concerns our business, we – as a company – voice opinions on social, environmental, regulatory or other matters that may affect our shareholders, customers, employees and the world.
Safety
We provide all employees with safe and healthy working conditions.
We comply with relevant safety laws and regulations, and deploy policies that prevent, identify and eliminate hazards across our company and operations. Safety representatives and improvement groups exist throughout our company.
We strive to adopt best practices and to exceed legal safety requirements. We continually measure and assess our safety performance.
PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE OUR PEOPLE
Employees
We seek to attract, develop, reward and retain outstanding individuals who appreciate the value of acting as a team.
We create equal opportunities for all our employees, without regard to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, marital status, race, religion or sexual orientation.
We do not condone unfair treatment of any kind. We treat all people with consideration and respect.
We are committed to the Investor in People standard.
Individual conduct
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Employees may not take business opportunities for themselves that belong to TNT. Our employees must report to management any transaction or relationship that could reasonably be expected to give rise to a conflict of interest.
COMPANY ASSETS
Our employees may not use company assets for unauthorised personal benefit. We do not tolerate fraud, theft, loss through recklessness or waste of company assets.
GIFTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Our employees must avoid improper personal benefits for themselves or family members that result from their association with TNT. Employees may not accept gifts or entertainment that might appear to place them under obligation.
BRIBES
Our employees and agents may not pay or accept bribes to gain or render orders, services or financial or other benefits. Our employees and agents must immediately turn down and report any attempt at or opportunity for bribery.
FACILITATING PAYMENTS
In certain circumstances, small cash sums or small gifts may be appropriate if customary and necessary to expedite or secure the performance of routine governmental action and permitted under applicable laws of the relevant jurisdiction. However, such payments – referred to as facilitating payments – should be avoided whenever possible. Prior to making such payments, there must be consultation with the ethics committee on behalf of the TNT Board of Management. All facilitating payments must be fairly and accurately recorded and accounted for.
PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE OUR BUSINESS
Customers
We strive to provide the most reliable and efficient solutions in the transfer of our customers’ goods and documents.
We safeguard property and information entrusted to us by customers and other parties.
Competition
We believe in open and fair competition.
We do not use unethical practices as a means to obtain competitive advantage. We will not use information acquired through illegitimate activity to the detriment of competitors or other parties.
Business associates and agents
The TNT Business Principles guide our decisions to do business or to partner with others. To the fullest extent possible, we require our business associates to observe the TNT Business Principles. We expect our agents – individuals or organisations that legally represent TNT – to comply with the principles.
PRINCIPLES THAT GUIDE OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR WORLD
Social responsibility
To carry out our business, we use resources that impact society and the environment. We support and strive to implement developments that can lead to sustainable environmental and social benefits.
We strive to use finite resources carefully. We incorporate environmental risk management into our decision-making. We review and regularly report on progress in social responsibility.
We invest in society around the world, putting our resources to use in areas related to our business. Our social investment aims to promote the best outcome for our partners, stakeholders and our business.
APPLICATION OF THESE PRINCIPLES
The TNT Business Principles apply to all TNT controlled companies and joint ventures and TNT employees. TNT expects its agents to comply with the TNT Business Principles.
The TNT Board of Management is responsible for adopting, communicating and enforcing the TNT Business Principles. Our internal audit, integrity, risk management and security functions support the board in monitoring compliance.
Any change in the principles or waiver of provisions may be made only by the TNT Board of Management with approval from the TNT Supervisory Board. Such changes will be promptly disclosed at group.tnt.com.
We will not penalise employees for loss of business resulting from adherence to the TNT Business Principles, for pointing out a breach or suspected breach of these principles, or for taking any lawful action with regard to a breach or suspected breach.
All employee decisions must be made with full recognition and in compliance with these TNT Business Principles.
Violation of these principles
Violation of the TNT Business Principles can lead to disciplinary measures, dismissal and, where laws are broken, civil or criminal prosecution.
TNT Whistleblower Policy
We encourage TNT employees to promptly report any breach or suspected breach of any law, regulation, the TNT Business Principles or other company policies and procedures or any other alleged irregularities.
We investigate reports promptly and with strict confidentiality, and we will not retaliate or undertake action against employees for filing a report or assisting another employee in doing so. However, intentionally making a false whistleblower report will lead to disciplinary action.
You can find the TNT Whistleblower Procedure at group.tnt.com.
TNT’S SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY POLICY
Our social responsibility policy sets forth our aspirations for environmental care and community involvement.
We are a global business that strives to improve our social and environmental impact on communities around the world. We aspire to help people realise their potential and meet the needs of the current generation without producing a poorer world for our children by compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
We are committed to communicating and building a dialogue with internal and external stakeholders about our challenges and accomplishments in achieving our sustainable development and environmental management goals. Our aim is to be as transparent as possible in social responsibility, while offering comparability to our competitors’ performance. We therefore implement a series of standardised management systems across the group. We also subscribe to the United Nations’ Global Compact, which embraces, supports and enacts a wide range of values in human rights, employment standards and the environment.
We hold an annual competition to celebrate the best internal initiatives and results in the field of sustainable development and environmental management.
Since 2003, we have been actively involved in the World Economic Forum’s logistics and transport sector corporate citizenship initiative. This initiative is aimed at improving the transparency of the social responsibility performance of logistics and transport companies.
In 2005, we entered the Dow Jones Sustainability Index as leader of the industrial transportation industry.
Until 2007, we are strongly focused on integrating a range of international standards throughout the group. To allow comparison between ourselves and other companies, and to demonstrate our progress, we set annual targets for our social responsibility performance. We made clear progress in 2005, meeting or even exceeding our objective in most areas. For details of individual targets, please refer to our 2005 social responsibility report.
We have learned from our stakeholder dialogues that our environmental performance is a key concern for our stakeholders. We have accordingly developed a new initiative, named “Driving Clean”, which is aimed at beginning to clean up our fleet by purchasing environmentally-friendly vehicles and by researching possibilities for retrofitting our current fleet with soot filters. This programme, for which we are partnering with the United Nations Environmental Programme, will be launched and implemented starting in 2006.
We reflect our progress and future plans in our 2005 social responsibility report. Our social responsibility report has been prepared in accordance with the 2002 Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines. It represents a balanced and reasonable presentation of our organisation’s economic, environmental and social performance. Our 2005 social responsibility report, although not part of this report, can be viewed on our website group.tnt.com.
PARTNERSHIP WITH UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME
In December 2002, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and TNT launched a groundbreaking partnership aimed at a single common goal: fighting world hunger. WFP is the world’s largest humanitarian aid agency. Annually, WFP provides food aid to an average of 90 million people, including 56 million hungry children, in more than 80 countries. As the United Nations logistics arm for humanitarian aid, it coordinates with other United Nations agencies, governments and non-governmental organisations to deliver food to the right place, at the right time.
The partnership with WFP forms the cornerstone of our commitment to the community on a global scale. The dedication and enthusiasm of our employees is helping the WFP take on one of the greatest logistical challenges of all: helping to feed the world.
In June 2005, more than 200,000 TNT and WFP personnel with their friends and families, participated for the second time in “Walk the World”, a sponsored walk encompassing over 90 countries.
Our partnership with WFP consists of three levels of engagement and resulted in the following achievements in 2005:
- knowledge transfer: applying our knowledge to enhance, for example, the WFP’s supply chain management capabilities, increase its fleet management systems and provide air operations training for its officials. In total we invested €3.6 million in these kind of projects,
- hands-on support: providing organisational expertise and assistance in order to respond to emergencies more effectively. In 2005 we continued to contribute the response to emergencies like the tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake by offering transport services, warehousing and specialised personnel deployed in direct support of the WFP in the regions. In total four emergency flights were carried out in 2005. Total investment in hands-on support, including the tsunami response efforts which started in 2004, has been over €2 million, and
- advocacy & awareness: helping raise awareness and funds for WFP. A total of 36 of our employees volunteered to spend three months building kitchens, latrines and classrooms, among other projects, as part of the WFP’s Global School Feeding Campaign. In 2005, our employees raised almost €2.2 million in cash donations for the agency’s school feeding projects. We are also helping the WFP to attract additional funds, new corporate partners and to increase awareness in both the public and private sector. The total amount invested in this category of projects has been €3.6 million.
In 2005, we invested a total of €9.6 million in the partnership with WFP of which €0.5 million has been financed by external parties. A total of €8.1 million came in the form of in-kind services and knowledge transfer projects and €1.5 million as a cash donation to a foundation established by our company to support WFP School Feeding Programmes.