Associated British Foods

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and states the frequency and channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, the company’s stakeholder engagement covers nature, nutrition, and social issues.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company reduces its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and has  relevant time-bound targets.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company showcases its commitment by implementing policies and engaging in activities aimed at reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging. Additionally, the company provides quantitative data concerning its efforts in reducing plastic usage and adopting sustainable packaging solutions.

Water withdrawal
The company actively shows its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations. Additionally, the company actively engages with its suppliers to collectively reduce water withdrawal. Moreover, the company provides evidence of its dependence on water-stressed areas within its supply chain and sets targets to actively engage with suppliers in the management of these areas. The company also reports on its progress towards achieving these targets.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company provides various examples of its reformulation efforts. In addition, it has successfully eliminated 510 tonnes of salt from Australian diets since 2007 and removed more than 144 tonnes of sugar from the food supply between 2007 and 2018.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses that some of its subsidiaries have adopted government-endorsed front-of-pack labeling systems, such as the Multiple Traffic Light labels in the UK.

Forced labour
The company discloses that it works with its supply chain to eliminate forced labour by means of online training modules and the India Worker Empowerment Programme (iWEP), designed to address the root causes of modern slavery.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company provides evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups such as women by means of its Care programme and the Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector (SHOPS) Plus project.

Living wage
The company has committed to achieve a living wage for workers throughout its supply chain by 2030. It has partnered with the Global Living Wage Coalition to develop or update living wage benchmarks for its main sourcing markets in China, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Using this information, the company will pilot various initiatives aimed at addressing living wage gaps.

Act ethically
The company discloses that it has a global tax strategy, and its compliance lies within the Board of Directors accountability. Additionally, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has public policy statements committing it to respect the health and safety of its workers and extends this expectation to its business partners. It also expects partners to not require work hours more than 48 hours in a regular week or more than 60 hours with overtime.

The company’s Board of Directors comprises 33.3% women, and it discloses the percentage of women in each employee category within its direct operations workforce.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement expecting its suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, it describes different approaches it uses to identify its salient human rights issues in the supply chains and engages with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities. Moreover, it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers through its speakUp phone line and web service.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
While the company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability, it has an opportunity to link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to its most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it can report any (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to explain how it has responded to key issues raised by each stakeholder group and disclose specific outcomes implemented to respond to key issues for each stakeholder group, beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including water, social inclusion, climate change, and ecosystem conversion; however, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Moreover, while it reports consistently against some targets including climate, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has and opportunity to disclose progress against its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets for all of its operations and to align these with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Furthermore, the company has disclosed that its total scope 3 emissions have increased by 36% compared to last year, highlighting an opportunity to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and to align its scope 3 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report progress against these targets. Additionally, the company can consider aligning its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and report progress against it.

Water withdrawal
The company has set a goal to decrease water withdrawals, but it also has the chance to either report useful data, report reductions in water withdrawals, or establish a time-bound target. Similarly, even though the company claims that its operations are situated in areas with low water scarcity, it has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of water withdrawals from water-stressed regions within its own operations.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to implement commercial activities aimed at enhancing the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods, particularly for vulnerable groups. Additionally, the company can set targets to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods through its commercial activities, with a special focus on vulnerable groups.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has announced its intention to disclose nutritional information for its branded portfolio in the UK, aligning with both the Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021 and the 2004/5 Nutrient Profiling Model. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for the company to clarify how it will utilize government-endorsed nutrient profiling systems to guide its product reformulation efforts and to establish sales-based targets for increasing the proportion of more nutritious products.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of products/menus for which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

Food safety
The company has the chance to show that all of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme or another widely recognized industry-specific certification. Additionally, it can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to showcase its marketing activities that promote healthier and more nutritious food options, based on government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines. Additionally, the company has a chance to disclose a responsible marketing policy specifically tailored to children that is aligned with international codes and guidelines and applicable across all media channels.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to prohibit child labour in its supply chain and an age-verification system for its value chain. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

Forced labour
While the company does not allow suppliers to retain workers’ personal documents and restrict workers’ freedom of movement, it has an opportunity to disclose similar commitments for its operations. Furthermore, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees or related costs in its value chain.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
While the company recognises the specific health and safety risks to women in some programmes in its supply chains, it could disclose the specific health and safety risks to vulnerable groups for the whole supply chain.

Land rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights. Furthermore, it could describe a process at its operations and supply chain level to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or direct suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company has a monitoring system to identify bribery and corruption but could disclose details of this identification process. While there is a mechanism for stakeholders to report concerns, it’s unclear whether it’s available to all stakeholders and if complainants can choose anonymity.

Moreover, the company can demonstrate ethical practices by disclosing a policy setting out its approach to lobbying and political engagement, clarifying its non-participation in political contributions, and adding requirements to third-party lobbyists to adhere to its guidelines in lobbying and political engagement activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment to workers’ health and safety by providing evidence of monitoring suppliers’ compliance. Furthermore, it could set a time-bound target for ensuring all workers receive a living wage and describe the living wage determination methodology for the regions where it operates. While it has set expectations on the wage paid by suppliers, it could add a requirement for them to pay a living wage and to disclose how it supports the payment.

While the company has a statement on gender equality and women’s empowerment, it has an opportunity to solidify this into a public policy document and to disclose time-bound targets. The company discloses the gender pay gap ratio of whole group employed in Great Britain except one of its subsidiaries, Primark, which reports separately. However, it could disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men across all employee categories by significant operation locations.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment to human rights in its operations by referencing all the ILO fundamental rights at work in its commitment statements in respecting workers’ rights. It could consolidate its public statements on respecting human rights and workers’ right into a formal policy document and outline the methods it uses to identify human rights risks, including the results of its human rights risk assessment.

While the company discloses its approach to assessing modern slavery risks among suppliers or in specific regions, it lacks a comprehensive process to determine which human rights are most at risk in its overall operations, allowing prioritizing the most salient ones. Moreover, the company could establish a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.