UPL

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
UPL discloses a materiality assessment which is the basis for its sustainability strategy. It also discloses its prioritised Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainability targets for 2025. However, the company does not disclose time-bound targets for all its prioritised sustainability topics. Therefore, it has an opportunity to enhance its disclosure by providing time-bound targets for all of its most relevant sustainability topics and reporting progress against them. The company could also strengthen its targets by covering sustainability topics across all three benchmark dimensions (environment, nutrition and social inclusion) in relation to both its own operations and its value chain.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses that its decision-making process and oversight responsibilities for its sustainability strategy lie with its highest governance body. It also shares it has a Sustainability Committee to ensure a cross functional and an organisational involvement in sustainability. However, the company does not disclose its board of director’s nor its executives’ remuneration policy regarding sustainability.

Stakeholder engagement
UPL discloses its process for identifying and engaging with stakeholders across its value chain, highlighting it prioritises stakeholders on their influence and impact on business operations. Additionally, the company shares the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement and its integration into its sustainability strategy and provides a lists of stakeholder groups, the mode of engagement and frequency. However, there is an opportunity for UPL to enhance its disclosure by further clarifying the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement activities and by demonstrating that its stakeholder engagement covers sustainability topics across all three benchmark dimensions across its value chain.

Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions
UPL discloses a time-bound target to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25% specific CO2 by 2025 from a FY2019-20 baseline. It reports its scope 1 and 2 emissions but has yet to report progress against its target. Furthermore, there is an opportunity for the company to demonstrate through external verification that the targets are aligned with a 2-degree trajectory.

Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions
UPL reports that it does not monitor other indirect GHG emissions and that it intends to include efforts to reduce scope 3 emissions in future reporting, providing an important opportunity to improve its performance in reducing GHG emissions.

Food loss and waste
The company discloses it is working towards reducing food waste caused by pests, diseases and practices. It has also recently announced a strategic collaboration with TeleSense to reduce food waste and increase profitability for farmers. However, no time-bound target or quantitative evidence to reduce food loss and waste were found in the public domain. Therefore, there is room for UPL to improve its disclosure on fighting food loss and waste by providing quantitative evidence of the efficiency of its products.

Soil health and fertiliser, and pesticide use
The company shares that its soil enhancement technology Zeba is a water management tool that improves soil health. It further emphasises a 30% reduction in fertiliser use thanks to the climate-smart technology. However, there is room for the company to strengthen its claims by disclosing a time-bound target to improve soil health and/or optimise fertiliser and pesticide use. The company could also increase its disclosure related to the quantitative evidence on the efficiency of its activities and products.

Availability of healthy foods
Through the application of innovation and technology solutions, the company commits to supporting smallholder farmers in the production of nutritious food. The company discloses that it partnered with HarvestPlus to launch biofortified vitamin A orange maize. It reports that the biofortified crop has many health and agronomic benefits for farmers, as it contains a high amount of nutritious vitamin A as well as being more drought and disease resistant. However, there is an opportunity for UPL to improve its disclosure by providing quantitative evidence on the impact of its activities.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
The company discloses its corporate goal to enhance world food security including an action plan and projects. The company has implemented measures to build resilient supply chain and improve access to seeds for local farmers. For example, the company is investing in activities to support the supply of a wider variety and higher volume of nutritional crops (vegetables) across multiple geographies. However, there is an opportunity for UPL to disclose quantitative evidence on the impact of its projects as a global and company-wide approach.

Workforce nutrition
The company provides evidence of two company-wide programmes for its employees: nutrition education and nutrition health checks. There is an opportunity for UPL to further ensure the provision of healthy foods at work and breastfeeding support throughout its operations.

Child labour
While the company commits to prohibiting child labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard, it has an opportunity to disclose a coordinated and consistent monitoring system for its supply chain.

Forced labour
The company does not disclose a commitment to prohibit forced labour in its operations. It also does not disclose a requirement that prohibits its suppliers from retaining workers’ personal documents and/or restricting workers’ freedom of movement. As such, the company does not provide evidence of eliminating and preventing forced labour in its own operations and supply chain

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.

Farmer productivity and resilience
The company discloses a goal to help 5 million farmers to improve their wealth and education as well as a target to have a 15% increase in crop yields from baseline 2020. Furthermore, it has recently announced a collaboration with TeleSense® to reduce food waste and increase profitability for farmers. While it shares multiple projects, the company does not disclose the impact of its support activities. Therefore, there is an opportunity for UPL to increase its disclosure on the impact of its activities supporting the resilience, productivity and access to markets for farmers.

Land rights
While the company is engaged in supporting the local land tenure reforms in West and Central Africa through the Cocoa & Forests Initiative, it does not explicitly commit to recognising and respecting the legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land of local communities.

UPL has a public commitment to respect human rights. However, while its policy refers to the ILO conventions, the company does not mention commitments to prohibiting forced labour or respecting collective bargaining in its own operations or for its suppliers. It identifies, assesses and takes action to address its human rights salient risks in its own operations and its supply chain. The company identifies and engages with the stakeholders whose human rights are potentially or actually impacted by its operations and has a grievance mechanism that is accessible to employees and external stakeholders.

The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect the health and safety of workers. However, it could further improve by disclosing the types of work-related injuries it tracks, additional information on workplace diversity and more concrete commitments to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The company does not have public disclosure on overtime work, nor on the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining.

The company has made public commitments to protect personal data but can improve by disclosing information on collecting, sharing and accessing data. While the company has public disclosures on global tax strategy, bribery and corruption and political engagement, it can further improve by disclosing corporate tax paid for each tax jurisdiction, describing the processes for identifying bribery risks within its operations and disclosing expenditures for political contributions and lobbying, if any.