Coop Group

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

Animal welfare
As part of its animal welfare progress report, Coop Group discloses welfare requirements for each of its key species such as laying hens and broiler chickens, pigs and sows, and fish. It also reports on progress, with some of the product ranges being regularly audited. The company can further strengthen its commitment by setting targets that address key animal welfare issues across all of its relevant species and reporting progress against them.

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
Coop Group discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics. It also reports progress against these topics, which cover mainly environmental and social issues. This signals an opportunity for the company to set targets for nutrition issues and report progress against them.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company does not disclose the governance structure for the implementation of its sustainable development strategy, such as the person, team or committee that holds ultimate responsibility for its implementation. Neither does it disclose targets.

Stakeholder engagement
While the company has conducted stakeholder engagement activities and discloses an overview of the issues raised via these activities, it has an opportunity to disclose how it identifies its most relevant stakeholders, along with information on how the outcomes of the engagement process are integrated into the company’s sustainable development strategy.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
While Coop Group has an overall CO2-neutral target by 2023, it is yet to report progress against the target. However, it shares its progress against 2019 targets for its retail, production and wholesale sectors to reduce CO2 emissions in absolute terms from a baseline year. The company has room for improvement by ensuring its interim targets are aligned with 1.5-degree trajectory and expanding the targets to include its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Protection of terrestrial natural ecosystems
Coop Group provides evidence of its commitment to achieve deforestation and conversion-free supply chains by setting targets for most of its high-risk commodities such as palm oil and soya for animal feed. However, the company only discloses progress against its targets for soya.

Food loss and waste
While Coop Group provides qualitative evidence of initiatives to reduce food waste, it is yet to provide sufficient quantitative evidence of reducing food waste. Neither has it set targets to reduce food waste across its operations.

Plastic use and packaging waste
Coop Group has set targets to reduce its packaging waste but reports limited progress against them. The company also an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by engaging with partners to reduce plastic use and transition to sustainable forms of packaging across its value chain.

Availability of healthy foods
While Coop Group mention that it examines the nutritional composition of its products and recipes, it can strengthen its commitment by disclosing quantitative evidence of the reduction of salt, sugar and fat, and setting targets to increase the percentage of such healthy foods in its portfolio.

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
Coop Group discloses its commitment to comply with national regulations regarding labelling and commits to making nutritional information available for all consumers. However, it has an opportunity to make nutritional information more visible to consumers through the adoption of front-of-pack labels or any other consumer-facing nutrition labelling schemes.

Responsible marketing
While Coop Group provides evidence of responsible marketing initiatives for children and healthy school meals, no evidence was found regarding a responsible marketing commitment or policy around food aligned with international codes and guidelines such as the International Chamber of Commerce’s Advertising and Marketing Communications Code across all media channels.

Workforce nutrition
The company does not disclose a workforce nutrition programme that prioritises making healthy foods the standard in the workplace.

Food safety
The company does not disclose evidence of ensuring safe food for consumers through compliance with national regulations and/or the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene, nor an effective food safety certification scheme.

Child and forced labour
The company requires that its suppliers not use child and forced labour and provides evidence of monitoring processes for high-risk countries. However, no sufficient evidence was found regarding its commitment to prohibit child and forced labour across its own operations.

Living wage
While Coop Group includes living wage requirements in its contractual arrangements with its suppliers, it does not provide its definition of what constitutes a living wage. Moreover, it is yet to disclose a time-bound target for paying a living wage across all its operations and supply chain.

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
Coop Group provides evidence of its commitment to support farmer productivity and resilience through its initiative to support the families of mountain farmers with investment credit and funding for projects in mountain and Alpine regions. However, it is yet to report on the impact of these support activities.

Land rights
While Coop Group requires its supply chain partners to recognise and respect the legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land of local communities, it has an opportunity to disclose a grievance mechanism that is accessible to external individuals and communities. It can also ensure that it has processes for providing prompt and adequate remediation when legitimate rights holders are negatively affected.

While Coop Group provides a grievance mechanism for workers, it is not clear that grievances can be made anonymously, nor that there is a mechanism available for third parties. No further sufficient policies or commitments related to respect for human rights were found in the public domain. As such, Coop Group does not demonstrate it has in place the necessary policies and systems to respect basic human rights in its operations and supply chain.

Coop Group requires its supply chain partners to commit to paying their employees a living wage, but no commitment or target to pay a living wage in its own operations was found in the public domain. The company also reports on several metrics under workforce diversity and gender equality, although there remains an opportunity for increased disclosure. No sufficient policies or commitments on the other decent work topics – health and safety, collective bargaining and working hours – were found in the public domain.

Coop Group publicly commits to protecting personal data and has a privacy statement on the use of personal data. The company prohibits bribery and corruption in its operations and includes relevant clauses in its contracts with supply chain partners. However, it can improve its grievance process and disclosure on bribery and corruption identification processes. No global tax policy or document setting out the company’s approach to lobbying and political engagement were found in the public domain, and the company does not publicly report on tax and lobbying expenses.