Austevoll Seafood

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member. However, it should make clear if it is a full list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions in which it operates. In doing so, the company could take positive steps on the due diligence of the trade associations it supports.

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.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitments to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
Austevoll Seafood demonstrates its dedication to sustainable fishing and aquaculture by providing qualitative and quantitative evidence. It showcases a commitment to environmental sourcing criteria, offering evidence of its efforts. Additionally, the company discloses the increase in the percentage of its sustainable fisheries and aquaculture operations and sourcing, further validating its commitment to sustainable seafood sourcing.

Water withdrawal
The company reports quantitative reduction in water consumption across its operation in FY 2022 from FY 2021.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. It also has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers in its operations and supply chain. Additionally, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. Also, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and has 50% women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company discloses a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and the fundamental rights at work declared by the ILO in its operations and supply chain. It also indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Furthermore, it could disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s 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 disclose an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups, beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to climate. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Moreover, it could report consistently across all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to disclose reductions in Scope 1 and 2 and Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and set time-bound targets aligned with the Paris agreement’s 1.5 degree pathway.

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.

Plastic use and packaging waste
While the company describes its activities to reduce plastic use and transition towards sustainable packaging, it has an opportunity to disclose the associated quantitative data.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
Although Austevoll Seafoods has robust commitments to sustainable seafood sourcing, the company has the chance to disclose targets for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for its entire portfolio, aiming for 100% sustainability, and report on its progress towards achieving this goal.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and report progress against this target. Additionally, the company can consider reporting the amount of water withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. Furthermore, the company can engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company provides examples of reformulated products. However, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the presence of positive nutrients in its entire portfolio. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to establish nutrition criteria and to set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products.

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

Workforce nutrition
The company offers a nutrition education program for external stakeholders but could engage its employees as participant. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose evidence of other workforce nutrition programmes.

Forced labour
For its operations and supply chain, the company indicates a prohibition to retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement but could disclose a prohibition to pay recruitment fees. Furthermore, it could indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company has an opportunity to recognise and assess the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to set a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it sources. Also, it could disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. It could also disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement beyond in a public policy document and state that it does not make political contributions and divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards.

Additionally, the company states that it pays a legal wage sufficient to cover basic needs. However, it could specify if it is enough to maintain a decent standard of living for employees and their family, disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage. It could also describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates and how it works to support its suppliers in paying a living wage.

Furthermore, the company could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose related targets and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to describe a comprehensive process for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain, and its salient human rights issues. It could specify what it considers to be salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered such as geographical, economic and social factors, and how it acts to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues through a global system.