Good corporate governance and finance

K Code of Conduct

All of our personnel act in compliance with the K Code of Conduct.

From the beginning of 2015, all of Kesko's Russian business companies have had their own anti-corruption policies. We decided to update Our Responsible Working Principles guidelines in 2016.

We updated Our Responsible Working Principles guidelines in 2016. The new guidelines were named the K Code of Conduct and were published in the languages of all our operating countries in October 2016. We named 20 K Code of Conduct ambassadors as the messengers and contact persons. We will update all new and renewed employment contracts to include a clause about the requirement for personnel to familiarise themselves and comply with the K Code of Conduct. We will add a K Code of Conduct contract clause to all agreements signed by Kesko Group companies. As of 2017, we oblige the entire personnel to annually acknowledge their compliance with the K Code of Conduct guidelines. 

As of 2017, we oblige the entire personnel to annually confirm their compliance with the K Code of Conduct guidelines. By the end of 2017, 65% of personnel had made the annual confirmation.

We organise regular training on the K Code of Conduct.

The online training on responsibility, which was published in 2015 and directed at all Kesko employees, describes Our Responsible Working Principles. As part of the ongoing responsibility training, a training event on Our Responsible Working Principles was organised for the key employees of Kesko’s company in Belarus in 2015.

As part of the ongoing responsibility training, a training event on the K Code of Conduct was organised in Suomen Lähikauppa and two Russian subsidiaries in 2016. The events focused largely on corruption and fraud-related issues. The eLearning training targeted at all personnel had been attended by 3,159 people at the end of 2016. We drew an annual plan for 2017 which includes procedures to increase the personnel's awareness of the K Code of Conduct such as communication and training events for every quarter.

We continued to communicate and implement the K Code of Conduct in practice according to the annual plan. Some 20 K Code of Conduct ambassadors in different operating countries have been appointed to act as messengers and contact persons. Kesko’s Legal Affairs, Risk Management and Internal Audit organised K Code of Conduct training in the subsidiaries in Norway, Poland and Sweden in 2017. The events focused especially on corruption and fraud-related issues. The K Code of Conduct eLearning programme targeted at the entire personnel had been completed by 8,867 people by the end of 2017.

Return on capital

Kesko's objective is to achieve a 14% comparable return on capital employed and a 12% return on equity.

The comparable return on capital employed was 11.7%, and the comparable return on equity was 8.2%.

The comparable return on capital employed was 11.9%, and the comparable return on equity was 9.8%.

In 2017, the comparable return on capital employed was 12.2% and the comparabe return on equity was 10.9%.

Human rights

We respect human rights and take them into account in all our operations.

We continued to assess human rights related impacts in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. During the extensive report work, we heard the thoughts of customers and personnel as well as employees in high-risk countries' factories on human rights and how well they are realised in K Group's operations.

We published our human rights assessment and human rights commitment on our website. We will review and update it every three years. We will construct our operating models so that respect for human rights is observed in all our operations.

We followed up our human rights assessment by conducting a review of working conditions in the supply chain of grapes in collaboration with the Trade Union Solidarity Centre of Finland (SASK). The human rights assessment will be reviewed every three years, with the next review taking place in 2019.