Governance & Sustainability

The directors and employees of Illovo strive to ensure that the company is managed in an efficient, accountable, responsible and moral manner and to this end, endorsed fully its compliance with the Code of Corporate Practices and Conduct contained in the King Report on Corporate Governance for South Africa 2002, known as King II. With the release of the King Report on Governance for 2009 (King III), Illovo committed in its 2010 Annual Report to compliance with the new standards incorporated in the King III Code and during the 2010/11 season, the board reviewed and evaluated corporate governance practice within the group, presenting its first report relative to this Code on pages 62 and 63, under the Sustainability section carried in the 2011 Illovo Annual Report. Illovo has established a system to apply the principles of the Code, except for those instances where the board decides that certain principles are not appropriate, in which case reasons for this are provided. For the year ahead, Illovo will also comply with the new South African Companies Act, 2008, as amended, effective 1 May 2011.

Sustainability is a critical component of corporate governance and the group aims to ensure that sustainable development principles underpin all business activities and that it operates in a socially responsible manner towards its stakeholders in delivering positive social, economic and environmental benefits. During the 2010/11 season, Illovo initiated a reporting process aligned to global reporting standards across all operations to assess and quantify key areas of its sustainability performance which, in the longer term, will assist the group with the formalisation of an integrated sustainability reporting approach. At the time of the release of the Illovo 2010/11 Annual Report, this process had not been completed and the Sustainability section carried in this report constituted a shortened version of the sustainability content prior to the now-published group Sustainable Development Review for the same period, For ease of reference, a full Global Reporting Initiative Index (GRI Index), referencing sustainability content in both the Annual Report 2010/11 and Sustainable Development Review 2010/11, is carried in the latter document.

Click here to access the Sustainability section carried in the Illovo Annual Report 2010/11

Click here to access the Sustainable Development Review 2010/11 (incl. GRI Index)

Illovo’s progress towards these objectives has been assisted by its ongoing involvement with the JSE’s Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index, to which it has been admitted for the past four years. On the ground, and cognisant of the development needs of the diverse and rural environments in which Illovo operates, the group has a long-standing track record of social investment delivery extending from the provision of basic services to direct financial investment to improve education delivery. In the past year, the group spent R143 million on both employee-related and community development programmes.