Aldi South Group

No leading practices were identified for the company in the governance and strategy measurement area.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
Aldi South Group has set 2030 targets to eliminate overfishing, bycatch and ecosystem damage in its fish and seafood supply chains, and it reports on the proportion of responsibly sourced fish and seafood annually. The company also discloses its criteria for responsible sourcing of fish.

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.

Sustainable development strategy
The company’s vision 2030 goals guide its corporate social responsibility strategy, and it discloses the development of this strategy, which includes stakeholder surveys. While the company has defined a number of targets for most topics in its strategy, it is yet to report on them.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company provides an overview of the roles in their sustainability department, which includes oversight of sustainability decisions by the senior management. However, the company lacks disclosure on whether it considers sustainability objectives in its remuneration policies.

Stakeholder engagement
Aldi South Group provides an overview of its stakeholder engagement activities and the issues discussed. However, the company could further improve its disclosures by reporting on how it identifies its most relevant stakeholders and ensuring its stakeholder engagement covers sustainability topics across all three benchmark dimensions (environment, nutrition and social inclusion) across its value chain.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
Aldi South Group has a target to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 26% by 2025 from a 2016 base year, which is aligned with a well-below 2-degree scenario. However, it is yet to report progress against the target. In terms of scope 3 emissions, Aldi South Group commits to encouraging its strategic suppliers, who are responsible for 75% of product-related emissions, to work towards setting science-based emissions reduction targets by the end of 2024. However, the company is yet to report on this commitment and disclose its scope 3 emissions.

Protection of terrestrial natural ecosystems
Aldi South Group has an overall goal to eliminate deforestation from its high-priority supply chains by 2030. However, the company only provides the percentage of sustainable products for some of its high-risk commodities. It can improve its performance by reporting progress against its overall target for all of its high-risk supply chains.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
In terms of sourcing from sustainable practices that optimise fertiliser and pesticide use, Aldi South Group discloses the percentage of products from its suppliers in the United Kingdom. There is room for the company to further improve by reporting across other regional markets, 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
In addition to a number of targets and initiatives across its regional markets, Aldi South Group has set an overall 2030 target aiming for 90% of food and operational waste to be diverted from landfill or incineration. However, the company is yet to report progress against the target.

Plastic use and packaging waste
While the company currently discloses several targets and reporting for its regional markets, it has set new 2025 global targets to use own-brand packaging that is recyclable, can be reused or composted. It is also working with business partners to reduce own-brand packaging weight by 15%.

Availability of healthy foods
The company discloses sugar and salt reduction targets under its Hofer subsidiary, and provides qualitative evidence of improving the nutritional quality of its products for its German and Australian markets. For its markets in the United Kingdom, the company has a target to increase the percentage of healthy foods in its portfolio, discloses its definition of healthy products and reports the percentage of sales from healthy products. The company has an opportunity to ensure such detailed reporting at the group level.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
Aldi South Group has several initiatives in its regional markets to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthy food. These include promoting fruits and vegetables at lower prices as part of the Peas Please Pledge in the United Kingdom, and the Fresh for Less programme in Australia offering fresh fruit and vegetables at permanently low prices. However, no evidence of targets and reporting on a global level was found.

Clear and transparent labelling
Aldi South Group is committed to clear and intuitive labelling through disclosure on the use of front-of-pack labelling schemes such as Nutri-Score and Health Star Rating. It can further improve its performance by disclosing the percentage of products for which such labelling commitments have been rolled out.

Responsible marketing
While Aldi South Group provides evidence of responsible marketing commitments and initiatives for its UK, German and Australian markets, no evidence of commitments was found for its other markets.

Workforce nutrition
The company has a number of nutrition initiatives across its regional markets, such as nutrition education in its UK and German markets as well as provision of healthy food at work for its German market and Hofer subsidiary. However, the company has an opportunity to further strengthen its commitment to workforce nutrition by disclosing quantitative evidence on the percentage of food offerings with healthy options.

Food safety
While Aldi South Group does not report on an international level on food safety, reporting across several its regional markets, such as the United States, Australia and United Kingdom, states that it is compliant with national regulations. The company discloses that the US, UK, Australia and Hofer subsidiaries have programmes recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative.

Child labour
Aldi South Group commits to prohibiting child labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard. In addition, the company requires its suppliers to have an age-verification system in place. While the company discloses processes for monitoring and remediation across its supply chain, it lacks a coordinated and consistent monitoring system for its own operations.

Forced labour
Aldi South Group commits to prohibiting forced labour in its operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard. In addition, the company prohibits suppliers from retaining workers’ personal documents and restricting workers’ freedom of movement. While the company requires its suppliers to respect workers’ right to collective bargaining and freedom of association and not to interfere with workers seeking to exercise these rights, no evidence of the same commitment was found for its own operations.

Living wage
While the company describes how it works to support the payment of a living wage in its supply chain, it has not yet achieved paying all workers a living wage across its own operations, nor set a target to do so.

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 has several initiatives, such as Choceur Choco Changer, which help farmers to improve yields. It also partners with The Prince’s Countryside Fund in the United Kingdom to support family livestock farming communities with training. However, it is yet to report on the impact of its activities.

Land rights
No sufficient evidence was found regarding the company’s commitment to recognise and respect the legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land of local communities.

Aldi South Group is committed to respecting human rights and ILO core labour rights, and it expects its supply chain partners to do the same. Furthermore, the company provides grievance mechanisms that are accessible to employees and external stakeholders such as communities. While the company has processes for identifying human rights risks, it can improve its human rights due diligence commitments by disclosing the assessment of and action plan for addressing the salient human rights risks in its operations and supply chain.

Aldi South Group is committed to respecting health and safety and supports the payment of a living wage by its supply chain partners. The company can improve its disclosure by providing commitments on paying a living wage in its own operations. Furthermore, no sufficient commitments were disclosed on collective bargaining, working hours, workforce diversity, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Aldi South Group publicly commits to protecting personal data and has a privacy statement relating to the collection, sharing of and access to personal data. The company has an opportunity to improve its disclosure on bribery and corruption by describing the processes to identify its bribery and corruption risks and impacts. It can also strengthen its policy on responsible lobbying and political engagement. No evidence was found of commitments regarding responsible tax.