K+S

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
K+S groups its sustainability targets into people, environment and business ethics. It discloses time-bound targets and KPIs for its most material topics, but could improve its performance by also considering the role it has to play on vital nutrition topics and setting associated targets.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development strategy
K+S’ board of directors decided upon the sustainability goals for 2030, and certain KPIs related to them are linked to long-term incentives. However, there is no disclosure of an individual or group that is explicitly and specifically assigned to implement or oversee the company’s sustainability strategy.

Stakeholder engagement
K+S lists the stakeholders it engages with (employees, business partners, investors, politicians, communities, non-governmental organisations), disclosing its channels, topics and its frequency. However, the company does not disclose the process for identifying those stakeholders, the outcomes of the engagement and the integration of these outcomes into its sustainability strategy. The relevance of this engagement for setting the sustainability strategy is not clear. In addition, the nutrition dimension is missing.

Scopes 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
K+S reports on its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for segments of scopes 1, 2 and 3 and discloses targets to reduce their intensity, as well as qualitative evidence of efforts to reduce them. However, the targets set are not company-wide.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
Despite K+S’ research, development and innovation efforts, there is no evidence of adoption of sustainable practices that improve soil health and increase agrobiodiversity.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company provides qualitative evidence of its efforts through offering consulting services for its customers on optimal fertiliser use and providing smallholder farmers with ideal fertiliser use recommendations. The company is also working with partners to develop smart-phone applications that will inform farmers of the nutrient content of crops, and so indicate the ideal type, time and quantity of fertiliser to use. However, the company is yet to provide any quantitative evidence in terms of optimising fertiliser use, nor has it set any targets to do so.

Water use
K+S discloses its water withdrawal, use and discharge volumes. However, all of its targets related to water refer to the reduction of environmental impact from saline process water disposal, and not to overall water withdrawal reduction.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company does not disclose that it is reducing its plastic use and transitioning to sustainable forms of packaging.

Availability of healthy foods
The company does not disclose a commitment or activities to increase the availability of healthy and nutritious foods.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
While the company discloses activities to support smallholders farmers, it has an opportunity to formulate a commitment with a specific focus on addressing insecurity and disclose initiatives designed to address the accessibility and affordability of healthy and nutritious foods.

Workforce nutrition
The company does not disclose sufficient evidence of having any workforce nutrition programmes.

Child labour
Although K+S prohibits child labour in its own operations, codifies the same requirement for its suppliers in its supplier code of conduct and has started implementing a monitoring and human rights risks due diligence system (beginning with Chile in 2019), it has an opportunity to disclose a coordinated and consistent monitoring system for its for its own operations and to disclose a policy requiring its suppliers to have an age-verification system.

Forced labour
Although K+S prohibits forced labour in its own operations, codifies the same requirement for its suppliers in its supplier code of conduct and has started implementing a monitoring and human rights risks due diligence system (beginning with Chile in 2019), it does not state that it does not retain workers’ documents, nor does it request its suppliers to do the same.

Living wage
The company does not disclose that it pays its workers a living wage or requires its suppliers to do the same. Neither has it set 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.

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.

Farmer and fisher productivity and resilience
K+S supports smallholder farmers via specific programmes. Since 2013, Growth for Uganda has reached 130,000 farmers with fertiliser recommendations and business training, affecting 450,000 people’s income in the region. Its company Grainpulse offers plant-specific fertiliser mixtures in small quantities that smallholders can spread according to supporting fertiliser recommendations. K+S-funded the EzyAgric app, which offers ‘end-to-end farmer solutions from planning, inputs and production to market linkages’ as well as ‘instant, customisable, collateral-free loans’ to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. It has over 100,000 users. K+S can improve by measuring and disclosing the outcomes and impact of its support activities.

K+S commits to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights and has a publicly available statement that codifies a similar expectation for its supply chain partners. To guarantee these rights, the company engages with stakeholders. The implementation of a new human rights assessment policy is underway, while a publicly available grievance mechanism for workers and external parties is already available. However, the company does not disclose what it considers to be salient human rights risks, nor the findings of its stakeholder engagement or how those findings are relevant to the human rights policy.

K+S commits to the health and safety of its workers in its own operations and along its supply chain but does not explain how it ensures them. K+S has time-bound targets related to women’s participation at different levels of the organisation. However, commitments regarding paying a living wage, guaranteeing the rights of association and collective bargaining and placing limits on total working hours throughout the supply chain are lacking.

K+S commits to personal data protection that is collected on it website. The company has an anti-bribery and anti-corruption commitment and whistle-blower mechanism but does not disclose how it identifies bribery and corruption cases and their impacts. Political donations are forbidden but no wider policy regarding political engagement is disclosed, nor is any policy regarding responsible tax, showing a lack of transparency regarding these issues.