Heineken Sustainability Report 2008

Appendix 1: Assurance Report KPMG Sustainability

We were engaged by the Executive Board of Heineken N.V. ('Heineken') to provide assurance on the Heineken Sustainability Report 2008 (further referred to as 'The Report'). The Report, including the identification of material issues, is the responsibility of the Company’s management. Our responsibility is to issue an opinion on The Report.

What was included in the scope of our assurance engagement?

Our engagement was designed to provide the readers of The Report with:

• reasonable assurance on whether the financial data in Heineken at a glance are properly derived from the 2008 financial statements of Heineken N.V., for which KPMG issued an unqualified audit opinion;
• limited assurance on whether the information in The Report is fairly stated.

Procedures performed to obtain a limited level of assurance are aimed at determining the plausibility of information and are less extensive than those for a reasonable level of assurance. To obtain a thorough understanding of the financial results and financial position of Heineken N.V. the reader should consult the Heineken audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2008.

Which reporting criteria did Heineken use?

Heineken applies its own sustainability performance reporting criteria, derived from the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G3) of the Global Reporting Initiative and internal corporate guidelines for reporting, as detailed in the 'Reporting basis' here. It is important to view the performance data in the context of this explanatory information. We believe that these criteria are suitable in view of the purpose of our assurance engagement.

Which assurance standard did we use?

We carried out our engagement in accordance with Standard 3410N 'Assurance engagements relating to sustainability reports' of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Registeraccountants. This Standard requires, amongst others, that the assurance team possesses the specific knowledge, skills and professional competencies needed to understand and review the information in The Report, and that they comply with the requirements of the IFAC Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants to ensure their independence.

What did we do to reach our conclusions?

For the financial data we reconciled the financial data in Heineken at a glance with the audited 2008 financial statements of Heineken.

To determine whether the other information in The Report is fairly stated we:

• performed a media analysis and internet search on environmental, safety and social issues relating to Heineken, to obtain information on relevant sustainability issues in the reporting period;
• reviewed the follow-up of the stakeholder dialogue in The Report;
• reviewed the systems and processes for information management, internal control and processing of the qualitative and quantitative information in The Report, at corporate level;
• reviewed the systems used for generating, validating and aggregating the environmental and safety data at corporate level;
• visited six sites in Austria, Germany, Israel, Portugal, The Netherlands and The United Kingdom to assess the quality of the local data management systems and the reliability of the reported data;
• interviewed relevant staff and management at corporate level responsible for the reported information on specific issues in The Report, including agriculture, supply chain responsibility, responsible beer consumption and impact on developing markets;
• collected and reviewed internal and external documentation to determine whether the qualitative information is supported by sufficient evidence.

During the assurance process we discussed changes to the various drafts of The Report with Heineken, and reviewed the final version of The Report to ensure that it reflected our findings.

What are our conclusions?

Based on the above,

• the financial data in Heineken at a glance are properly derived from the 2008 financial statements of Heineken N.V., for which KPMG issued an unqualified audit opinion;
• the other information in The Report does not appear to be unfairly stated.

What else did we observe?

Without affecting the conclusions presented above, we would like to draw readers’ attention to the following:

Heineken currently reports on its CO₂ emissions and safety performance for production units only. For CO₂ emissions Heineken determined that the impact of the total value chain outweighs the impact of the production units. The safety performance currently excludes distribution and marketing activities. In order to effectively manage environmental and safety impact we recommend Heineken to set the scope of the redefined sustainability goals beyond production and to extend the performance information in the sustainability report accordingly.

The data management systems at the breweries can be further improved in terms of documenting data management procedures and recording the results of these procedures, such as the data review by management. We recommend improving the local data management systems on these elements in light of monitoring performance against the redefined sustainability goals.

KPMG SUSTAINABILITY