Ahold Delhaize

Sustainable development strategy
Ahold Delhaize discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics through its materiality assessment. The company discloses targets and reporting for most of its material environmental, social and governance impacts, which cover environmental, nutrition and social issues, and also extend across its value chain.

Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions
Ahold Delhaize demonstrates strong performance by setting a 50% reduction target for its scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 2030, aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory, and reports progress against the target.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the nutrition measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the social inclusion measurement area.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
Ahold Delhaize discloses roles and responsibilities for its sustainability strategy, which includes oversight by the company’s Executive Committee. Under the long-term equity-based plan for its management board members, a non-financial performance measure is included related to sustainability targets. Under the annual cash-based Executive Committee Incentive Plan for management board members, performance measures include the company’s environmental targets on food waste and emissions as well as nutritional targets on healthy product sales. However, no coverage of social targets was found in the remuneration process.

Stakeholder engagement
Ahold Delhaize discloses how it engages with key stakeholders and the results of such engagement. The company also discloses the process of its materiality assessment, which includes stakeholder engagement through online surveys and interviews as well as integration of their feedback into the company’s sustainability strategy. However, the company does not disclose its process for identifying its stakeholders.

Protection of terrestrial natural ecosystems
While the company is committed to achieving deforestation and conversion-free supply chains for its high-risk commodities, it only discloses targets and reporting for some of its high-risk commodities such as soya and palm oil. No target or reporting was found for its beef supply chain.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
Ahold Delhaize set 2020 targets to reach 100% of own-brand seafood product sales certified against an acceptable standard and from sustainable sources assessed by a credible third party. While the company reports against the target, it does not disclose progress against its target.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
In terms of sourcing from sustainable practices that optimise pesticide use, Ahold Delhaize discloses the percentage of total food sales from certified organic products. There is room for the company to further improve by setting time-bound targets for the percentage of food to be sourced from suppliers that optimise the use of fertilisers and pesticides, and reporting progress against the targets.

Food loss and waste
Ahold Delhaize has an overall target of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030, with interim 2020 targets to reduce tonnes of food waste per food sale, percent reduction in food waste per food sale and percent of total food waste recycled. However, the company does not report progress against the targets.

Plastic use and packaging waste
Ahold Delhaize has set 2025 targets for its own-brand products regarding reducing plastic use and packaging waste. While the company discloses several qualitative efforts in this area, quantitative progress against the targets is yet to be reported.

Availability of healthy foods
Ahold Delhaize set a 2020 target to increase the percentage of healthy own-brand food sales as a proportion of total own-brand food sales to 50%, and reports having achieved 49.8% by 2020. In terms of healthy sales standards, the company reports that it follows the Choices criteria for European brands and Guiding Stars ratings for US brands. However, it is yet to provide specific quantitative evidence of improving the nutritional quality of products, for instance through the reduction of salt, sugar, fat and calories or an increase in fruits, vegetables, nuts and wholegrains in products.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
Ahold Delhaize discloses that ensuring product availability and affordable pricing of products to meet the dietary needs of customers is a key material topic. The company’s Belgian stores offer the SuperPlus loyalty programme. This is aimed at promoting consumption of healthy foods by offering discounts for products that have a Nutri-Score A or B. However, no evidence of targets or reporting was found for this topic.

Clear and transparent labelling
Ahold Delhaize is committed to making nutritional information available to consumers in a clear, intuitive and accurate way through front-of-pack labelling schemes such as Nutri-Score ratings. While the company set a target to achieve 100% of own-brand products with front-of-pack nutritional labelling by 2020, the company reports having missed the target, achieving 96% in 2020.

Responsible marketing
While the company has a responsible marketing commitment for some of its brands, no evidence of a company-wide commitment or policy was found regarding marketing strategies that prioritise healthy foods, especially when marketing to children.

Workforce nutrition
Ahold Delhaize discloses that healthy food is made available to associates through special discounts on some brands and that it provides healthy food choices at work. However, the company has an opportunity to further strengthen its commitment towards workforce nutrition by disclosing quantitative evidence on the percentage of food offerings with healthy options, and promoting other programmes such as nutrition education, nutrition-focused health checks and breastfeeding support.

Food safety
The company set a 2020 target to achieve 100% of production sites for own-brand food products that are certified according to a standard recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) or comply with an acceptable level of assurance standard. However, it failed to meet the target, achieving 96%. Furthermore, no evidence of food suppliers certified to GFSI schemes was found.

Child and forced labour
Ahold Delhaize commits to prohibiting child labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard. The company also discloses monitoring and remediation processes. However, it has an opportunity to disclose a policy requiring its suppliers to have an age-verification system in place. In terms of forced labour, the company commits to prohibiting forced labour in its operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard. Nevertheless, it has an opportunity to disclose a requirement that prohibits its suppliers from retaining workers’ personal documents and restricting workers’ freedom of movement.

Living wage
The company’s Dutch subsidiary Albert Heijn is part of a coalition of national supermarkets committed to predominantly sell bananas that are sourced from plantations that pay a fair wage to their workers by 2025. However, the company does not disclose that it pays its workers a living wage, nor requires its suppliers to do the same. Neither has it set group-wide targets to do so in the future.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company does not disclose that it specifically recognises the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers.

Farmer and fisher productivity and resilience
The company does not disclose a commitment or examples of activities to support the resilience, productivity and access to markets for farmers, fishers and/or small-scale producers in its supply chain.

Land rights
The company does not commit to recognising and respecting the legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land of local communities.

Ahold Delhaize has commitments on respecting human rights and ILO core labour rights in its supply chain. The company displays a comprehensive human rights due diligence process which includes the identification and assessment of and action plan for the salient human rights risks in its operations and supply chain. As part of this process, the company provides grievance mechanisms that are accessible to employees and external stakeholders such as communities. There is an opportunity for the company to strengthen its commitment and disclosure regarding engaging with affected and potentially affected stakeholders.

While it commits to respecting the health and safety of its workers in its own operations and supply chain, Ahold Delhaize can improve its score by strengthening its disclosure on quantitative information regarding health and safety for its workers as well as how it monitors the health and safety performance of its supply chain partners. The company also provides commitments and limited disclosure on collective bargaining, workforce diversity, gender equality and women’s empowerment fundamentals. However, no information was found regarding the company’s commitment towards providing a living wage and on working hours.

Ahold Delhaize publicly commits to protecting personal data and has a privacy statement on the use of personal data. There is room for the company to improve its disclosure on accountability regarding the company’s global tax strategy and its disclosure on processes to identify its bribery and corruption risks and impacts. It can also strengthen its policies on lobbying and political engagement.