Through the Danone Way Guidelines, central teams implement sustainability recommendations for Danone entities. In 2018, these cover 4 topics (governance, health, social and environment) and 184 practices that pave the way towards achieving Danone’s 2030 Goals. All practices are organized based on their level of maturity (fundamentals, progression, maturity, and exemplarity).
The vast majority of our entities conduct a Danone Way annual self-assessment, which compares their practices to those defined as relevant to their business operations. For each practice, entities declare if they are compliant or not—or if they have an equivalent local practice. This, in turn, is a rich source of data for central teams, letting them monitor the level of best practices achieved by entity, geographical region, and division, and providing support as needed. After a review by central teams, entities receive a scorecard setting out their results—global maturity (rated by a number of stars from one to five), detailed performance by theme, and advice on practices needed to move ahead. Locally, these results are then used to guide sustainability roadmaps and define improvement plans.
Since 2015, and with its partnership with B Lab®, Danone has been working on increasing the synergies between the Danone Way program and the B CorpTM certification. For Danone entities that have not yet been certified as B CorpTM, Danone Way will support their advancement towards the certification. For entities already B CorpTM certified, a tailored Danone Way program, which focuses on health and nutrition practices, will allow them to keep tracking progress in themes not covered by the B CorpTM assessment, but that are important for our business.