Coles Group

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

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

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
Coles Group discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics through a materiality assessment. While the company reports on progress against its material topics across the environment, nutrition and social inclusion measurement areas, it has only set time-bound targets for some of its environment and social topics. It can further improve its performance by setting targets across the nutrition measurement area.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
Coles Group discloses the roles and responsibilities of its sustainability committee, which includes oversight by and approval from the board. Furthermore, sustainability metrics such as health and safety injury rate reductions are accounted for under the short-term incentives for its managing director and chief executive officer. The company can further improve on its accountability for sustainable development by expanding its sustainability metrics to cover all three benchmark dimensions of environment, nutrition and social inclusion.

Stakeholder engagement
Coles Group discloses the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement and their integration into its sustainability strategy through its materiality assessment. Furthermore, the company provides evidence of stakeholder engagement covering sustainability topics across all three benchmark dimensions (environment, nutrition and social inclusion) across its value chain. The company can further strengthen its commitment towards this topic by disclosing its process for identifying stakeholders across its value chain.

Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions
Coles Group discloses having met its 2020 target to reduce scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30%. In addition, the company has set a new target to reduce scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by more than 75% by 2030 and to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. However, Coles Group is yet to align its reduction targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Protection of terrestrial natural ecosystems
Coles Group states that it requires suppliers to obtain RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certification for their products. It uses other certifications such as Rainforest Alliance/UTZ and Cocoa Horizons when sourcing its other high-risk commodities such as coffee and cocoa. However, the company fails to disclose any quantitative evidence on the proportion of its commodities that are deforestation and conversion-free (DCF), nor has it set time-bound targets to achieve 100% DCF supply chains for all of its relevant high-risk commodities.

Water use
While Coles Group provides information on quantitative reductions in its total water use, it is yet to set a target to reduce its water consumption across its operations. It also provides some evidence of engaging with its fresh produce suppliers to reduce water use, but there is room for the company to strengthen its engagement with its suppliers to reduce water withdrawals in its supply chain, provide evidence of dependency on water-stressed areas across its supply chain and engage with suppliers in such areas.

Food loss and waste
Coles Group has a food waste reduction target and reports progress against it. The company also discloses information about initiatives with suppliers to reduce food waste by using unsold food in own-brand recipes and selling fruits and vegetables that are flawed in appearance. However, the company can further strengthen its commitment to reducing food waste by collaborating with value chain partners to prevent food loss and waste.

Plastic use and packaging waste
Coles Group discloses several initiatives with its supply chain partners to reduce plastic waste and has adopted 2025 targets to reduce its plastic packaging. However, the company is yet to report progress against the targets.

Animal welfare
Coles Group has an animal welfare policy covering requirements for its key species such as laying hens, pigs, dairy cows and fish. The company has also set targets for some of its products such as proprietary branded eggs and eggs as ingredients in its own-brand products. While the company’s policy mentions auditing and compliance processes, it is yet to disclose evidence of such processes.

Availability of healthy foods
Coles Group demonstrates that it is improving the nutritional quality of products by providing evidence of quantitative reductions in salt and sugar in its own-brand products. However, the company has an opportunity to set time-bound targets to increase the percentage of healthy food products in its portfolio and report progress against them.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
The company does not disclose a commitment and activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods for vulnerable groups.

Clear and transparent labelling
While the company demonstrates its commitment to clear, intuitive and accurate labelling through front-of-pack labelling schemes such as the Health Star Ratings system, it can strengthen its performance by disclosing the percentage of products for which such labelling commitments have been rolled out.

Responsible marketing
Coles Group commits to responsible marketing by complying with national regulations and providing evidence of activities such as the Fresh 5 Challenge to promote healthy eating by families. The company can further strengthen its commitment by setting time-bound targets to increase the proportion of its marketing budget spent on promoting healthy foods and reporting progress against the targets.

Workforce nutrition
Coles Group provides evidence of its Mind Your Health programme, which aims to educate its workforce about nutrition. It also offers breastfeeding support to its employees. The company has an opportunity to further strengthen its commitment towards workforce nutrition by promoting nutrition-focused health checks, providing healthy food at work and disclosing quantitative evidence on the percentage of food offerings with healthy options.

Food safety
While the company discloses compliance with national regulations, it has an opportunity to report on the proportion of its own operations that are certified to a food safety certification programme recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative or other widely recognised certifications.

Child and forced labour
Coles Group commits to prohibiting child and forced labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standards. In addition, the company expects suppliers to have an age-verification system in place, and it respects workers’ right to collective bargaining and freedom of association in its own operations and supply chain. While the company discloses monitoring and remediation processes for its suppliers, it has an opportunity to disclose a coordinated and consistent monitoring system for its own operations.

Living wage
While Coles Group expects its suppliers to pay their workers a living wage, the company is yet set a target to pay all workers in its own operations a living wage.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
Coles Group provides evidence of support activities through specific guidance for packing shed hazards and for cherry pickers to identify and manage health and safety risks, ensuring the health and safety of third-party labour providers’ workers, and specific guidance on minimum worker accommodation standards. However, the company has an opportunity to improve by conducting assessments on the health and safety risks to vulnerable workers in its supply chain and requiring its suppliers to identify and address health and safety risks to such groups.

Farmer and fisher productivity and resilience
Coles Group provides evidence of activities to support the resilience, productivity and access to markets for farmers through its direct milk sourcing model for dairy farmers for its own-brand fresh milk, offering transparent farm-gate prices for fixed-year contracts. However, the company can further strengthen its disclosure by reporting on the impact of its support activities.

Land rights
As part of its ethical sourcing policy, Coles Group requires suppliers to ensure appropriate steps are taken to identify and respect legitimate tenure rights holders when acquiring, leasing or using land. The company also has a grievance mechanism open to all stakeholders and requires suppliers to provide appropriate channels for worker and community grievances. While the company describes its general remediation process for human rights, no specific evidence was found of processes for providing prompt and adequate remediation, including access to justice when legitimate land rights holders are negatively affected.

Coles Group has a commitment to respect human rights and ILO core labour rights. The company displays a comprehensive human rights due diligence process that 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.

Coles Group discloses commitments to respect the health and safety of workers and support gender equality and women’s empowerment. It also discloses information relating to collective bargaining agreements in its own operations and workforce diversity. However, there is an opportunity for the company to strengthen its requirements on working hours fundamentals and paying a living wage.

Coles Group 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 income tax payments and its bribery and corruption identification processes as well as to strengthen its disclosure on lobbying and political engagement.