Governance and monitoring

Corporate accountability and risk assurance committee

The group corporate accountability and risk assurance committee (CARAC), a sub-committee of the SABMiller plc board, is responsible for overseeing progress against our 10 sustainable development priorities.  The CARAC is chaired by Dr Dambisa Moyo, a non-executive director of SABMiller plc.

Each region has its own CARAC which oversees local activity and agrees a relevant local strategy.  Regional CARACs are led by the regional managing director.  The group CARAC is regularly updated on each region’s progress and performance.

The Sustainability Assessment Matrix (SAM)

Twice a year, each business is required to provide both qualitative and quantitative data relating to each of our 10 priorities.  This is done through our bespoke management system, the Sustainability Assessment Matrix (SAM).  Performance is assessed against clearly defined criteria set out in the SAM ‘stairways’ and is reviewed by both the regional and group CARACs.

The 10 stairways – one for each priority – plot a course through five levels of performance, from a minimum standard (level one) to leading-edge (level five).  We require all our businesses, as a minimum, to reach level one or have a plan in place to do so.

In 2012 the average score achieved by SABMiller across all priorities was 3.2, an increase over the 2011 score of 2.9.  Group average scores increased across all 10 priorities, with a particularly strong improvement on discouraging irresponsible drinking, where the score increased by about 20%, from 2.9 to 3.5.

Visit our SAM portal for more detailed information on our scores by priority and by country.  You can also find data on country progress against a range of key performance indicators including water to lager ratio and total CO₂ emissions, as well as information on packaging types used in each of our local markets.

Improving data quality

This year we’ve continued our programme of training and in-country SAM reviews, holding reviews in Botswana, Colombia, Panama, Peru, Slovakia, South Africa and Zambia.  Businesses in each market were strongly committed to sustainable development and the quality of reporting was generally good.  During each review we share best practice from across the group and make recommendations on how to improve SAM scores.

We also support new businesses when they start reporting through SAM.  As part of the integration of the newly acquired CUB Ltd in Australia, we provided training and support to enable the business to report through SAM next year.  We have also held a series of workshops to support our global procurement business, Trinity, which submitted data to the SAM system for the first time this year.

To further strengthen the SAM process this year, we trialled new SAM guidance documents during four of our country reviews.  These have been developed with, and trialled by, our Internal Audit teams to ensure that the SAM stairways are understood and assessed consistently across the group.