General Mills' Global Responsibility in 2012

by Kim Nelson

I’m pleased to share with you our 2012 Global Responsibility report. It is posted on GeneralMills.com, as well as a video overview of our commitment.

We have reported our responsible business practices to the community for the past 42 years as a way of demonstrating the many ways our business performance reflects our values. Our report is an important way for us to be both transparent and accountable for our actions as a company.

For example, in the area of health, we seek to share the efforts we make to continuously improve our portfolio of products.

In the area of community engagement, we take the opportunity to showcase the many ways that we’re changing lives through our philanthropic activity in the communities we serve.

And in sustainability, we share our progress against the very aggressive goals we have established for ourselves – or, in the cases where we have struggled to reach our goals, we share the challenges are that we’re facing.

CSR is core to our values. When we talk about our mission of Nourishing Lives, it isn’t just a tag line. It’s a way of life at General Mills.

It means we can make lives richer, easier and healthier through the food products we provide. We also can better the communities we serve through our philanthropy. And, we can steward the resources at our disposal as we manufacture and source our ingredients for our products.

It is important that our employees, consumers, customers, and investors know they’re dealing with a company that is behaving with a sense of enlightened responsibility.

CSR has been and always will be a critical dimension of how we deliver long term economic shareholder value. In today’s world order to sustainably deliver economic value over the long term, you must also deliver social and environmental value.

As you read through our 2012 report, my hope is that your reaction will be similar to my own: one of immense pride and satisfaction that we are doing the right thing and continuously improving our impact and effectiveness. We are proud of the progress we’re making – and we are committed to doing more.

Editor’s note: To hear Kim Nelson talk about one of the aspects of corporate social responsibility at General Mills that she’s most proud of, click here.

This is the first post in a series about our 2012 Global Responsibility report featuring leaders within General Mills. The second post features a Q&A with John Machuzick, senior vice president and President of our Bakeries & Foodservice division.

Kim Nelson is the senior vice president of External Relations at General Mills, based in Minneapolis, Minn. She oversees the General Mills Foundation, Corporate Communications, Government Relations, Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. She began her career at General Mills in 1988.