For me, it’s a privilege to be part of the world’s largest nutrition, health and wellness company, and with that privilege comes an opportunity – as well as a responsibility – to engage with our consumers and the communities where we do business.

Even for a well-recognized name like Nestlé, this isn’t always an easy task.

As my colleague Betsy Cohen noted in her blog post last month, not that many people in the U.S.A  realize we are actually made up of five operating companies -  Nestlé USA, Nestlé Waters North America, Nestlé Purina PetCare Company, Nestlé Nutrition and Nestlé Professional –  or that we produce many of the USA’s most recognized brands.

Neither are people necessarily aware what Creating Shared Value means or that it is the strategic business model that guides our work.

So, I welcomed the recent release of our first-ever CSV report in the United States as a great opportunity to tell more people about how Nestlé works, and explain our long-term commitment to investing in the areas where we operate.

Whether this is helping to strengthen local economies by creating productive jobs with comprehensive benefits, or by working closely with organizations that provide health, nutrition and water education, I think the case studies provided in the report really help to illustrate our reach – and collective impact.

You can read much more about what we are doing in the United States by visiting:  http://www.Nestleusa.com/PubNews/FactSheets.aspx.

Nestlé has always had these practices, but we’ve never really talked about them  extensively – or from the perspective of all five U.S. companies – before. I think we are realizing that people want to know more about the company, the people and the commitment behind the brand, and I am very pleased to be part of extending this dialogue.

It’s been a week since Nestlé held its second international Creating Shared Value Forum, which has given me time to reflect on the day’s lively series of debates.

The decision to invite some of - in Nestlé chairman Peter Brabeck’s words - ‘the best minds available’ to discuss the role that business and other global partners can play in addressing key challenges in nutrition, water, and rural development over the next decade, was guaranteed to generate a fascinating variety of opinions.

In the end, these came not only from the Forum’s expert speakers, but also the government officials, academics, and charity, NGO, and media representatives in the audience, the 3,500 people from who followed the live webcast online, and all those who submitted questions to the panel and took part in the parallel online discussion here.

Although the Forum served to highlight the complexity of the problems in hand, and the fact that they have are no simple solutions, the extent to which they resonated with a cross-section of international society was clear.

Whether it was Peter Brabeck asserting “that corporate philanthropy is absolutely wrong”, Jane Nelson of Harvard Kennedy School observing that partnerships “are absolutely critical to the delivery of shared value”, or the online participants asking if a company’s commitment to sustainable practices can impact its profitability, or what multinationals like Nestlé can do to encourage best practice among small farmers, participants were motivated one thing: the desire to achieve lasting impact by finding better ways of working together.

If there a consensus was to be had, it was that Creating Shared Value, championed by Nestlé as the operating model which goes beyond traditional concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility, could be a real driver of positive collaborative action if private, public and civil institutions are prepared to enter an open constructive dialogue, where knowledge about potential risk, as well as value creation, is freely shared.

Sara Wolcott of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) attended our second international Creating Shared Value Forum in London last Thursday.

Commenting on the Nutrition and Development session on her blog, she refers to IDS Director and session panel member Lawrence Haddad's suggestion that we need to be concerned not only for the world's "bottom billion" people suffering from under-nutrition, but also the "billions of bottoms" that are getting larger when chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and other major killers are exacerbated by over-nutrition.

While Sara notes the general agreement among the panel with Haddad's argument that the private sector - especially Nestlé - has a great deal to offer through what he called the “four Ls” (learning, linking, leveraging and leadership), she wonders how companies can work to achieve this in reality.

View video hightlights from the Nutrition and Development session here.

Interviews with two of the expert panel from yesterday's second international Nestlé Creating Shared Value Forum are now available to view online:

Amir Dossal from the United Nations Office for Partnerships explains why the private sector - with its expertise, technology, management skills, and global reach - must be encouraged to "invest its creativity" in the Millennium Development Goals.

Dr. Ismail Serageldin of Bibliotheca Alexandrina stresses that no one group can tackle the pressing global development challenges we face on its own. Nestlé is showing strong leadership, he says, but others must join in if we are to "abolish hunger in our lifetimes".

Dossal and Sergeldin were just two of the world leading experts in nutrition, water and rural development brought together by Nestlé to discuss the serious global challenges facing us in these three areas, and the role business has to play in solving them. 

More highlights and links from the Forum will be available here soon.

On Thursday 27 May 2010, experts from a range of organisations including Nestlé, the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and the UN Office for Partnerships, will meet at our second international Creating Shared Value Forum.

International thought leaders including Dr Robert E. Black, Chair, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dr Colin Chartres, Director General of the International Water Management Institute and Ruth Oniang’o, the Founder and Executive Director of the Rural Outreach Programme (ROP), Kenya, will convene in London to explore the development challenges certain to face businesses and global partners over the coming years.

We will also be announcing the winner of our first Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value.

This interactive event is an opportunity for you to listen to and engage with some of the world’s top experts in nutrition, water and rural development. Watch the live webcast and submit your question to the expert panel, or get involved by joining the live discussion we are hosting right here on the CSV Forum pages.

A programme of the day’s events is available on our main Nestlé website, where highlights will also be posted after the event.

John Martin Miller, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé Philippines, opened our Asia, Oceania and Africa (AOA) region’s first Creating Shared Value Forum in Manila on 23 April 2010 with a call for multinationals, and other businesses and organisations to form ‘an era of collaboration’, to reinforce the increasing role of the private sector in sustainable development.

Held in partnership with Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), the Asian Institute of Management, the Ramon V. Del Rosario Center for Corporate Social Responsibility and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the event aimed to engage a diverse group of people from government, non-government organisations, as well as the private sector, with the evolving concept of CSV.

Around 260 attendees, including those from academia, the media, bi and multi-lateral aid agencies, and a number of Nestlé employees, listened to the expert panel discuss issues relating to nutrition, water and rural development in the Philippines. Topics ranged from the need to promote affordable but healthy food to consumers in the lowest socio-economic brackets to why managing water use for the future must be a real consideration today.

Professor Mark Kramer, Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, who along with Harvard Senior Fellow Mr. Michael Porter coined the term CSV, was the keynote speaker. Explaining the thinking behind making the transition from Corporate Social Responsibility to Creating Shared Value, he emphasised the importance of strengthening collaborative ties with different sectors of society to provide not only competitive success but to also make a material difference.

Best practice examples of some of our own CSV programmes that are making a real impact in the Philippines were displayed in an accompanying exhibition. These included ‘Cut and Sew’, a new initiative offering women the opportunity to generate income by repairing Nestlé factory workers’ uniforms, and ‘Ice Cream Street Selling’, which recruits local entrepreneurs to act as micro-distributors of Nestlé products.

For us, regional events like this, in addition to our annual international CSV Forum, held this year in London, are an important way of beginning and maintaining dialogue with other organisations and different sectors of society around some of the most important issues we all face. Following this first event in our AOA region, we hope not only to extend our own reach by identifying areas and connections where we can collaborate to create shared value, but to also encourage other businesses to make a long-term difference to the Philippines’ development by focusing on those specific areas where they can make the greatest impact. View photos from the Philippines Forum.

• What are the main drivers and impacts of hunger and under-nutrition? 
• What role can businesses play and which areas do you believe business leadership can be problematic?

As the world’s leading Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company we believe that our future lies in helping people to eat a healthier diet, whether the problem is deficiency in vitamins and minerals at one end of the spectrum, or obesity at the other. These global challenges influence our initiatives to bring nutrition solutions to all segments of society. Using science-based solutions, we seek to improve quality of life through food and diet, contributing to the health and wellbeing of consumers, including those with specific nutritional needs and those at the “base of the income pyramid” through products with higher nutritional value at lower prices.

Childhood obesity is reaching epidemic proportions globally, and particularly in the United States. Data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) surveys (1976–1980 and 2003–2006) show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%.

In light of this, Michelle Obama, US First Lady and mother of two, recently launched "Let's Move" — her national public awareness campaign against childhood obesity. This initiative aims to rally families, communities, schools, urban planners, politicians and the media to "solve the problem of childhood obesity within a generation so that children born today will reach adulthood at a healthy weight".

The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, a partnership between more than 40 of United States’ largest retailers, non-profit organizations, food and beverage manufacturers and trade associations aimed at helping to reduce obesity, of which Nestlé USA is an active partner, thanks the First Lady for her determined commitment to reducing childhood obesity.

Join Michelle Obama to tackle the challenge of childhood obesity.