Avril Group

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 is committed to reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and has set a time-bound target for achieving this. Additionally, the company regularly reports its progress in meeting these targets for scope 1 and 2 emissions.

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

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitment and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company offers multi-annual contracts to farmers, providing them with a guarantee for both the volume and price of their produce. This allows farmers to secure the sale of all their products within a specified price range.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and incorporates anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships.

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. The commitment also extends to its business relationship. Furthermore, The company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, and sets a target to increase women’s proportion in its workforce to 33% in 2023.

Respect human rights
The company 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 strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by assigning decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Additionally, it could disclose if the highest governance body has expertise in its most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, it could provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets and 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 and ecosystem conversion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While the company reports consistently against all its annual targets, it has an opportunity to disclose progress against all its mid- or long-term targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, there is potential for the company to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve this, the company has disclosed an intensity-based target of reducing scope 3 emissions by 30% by 2030 compared to 2019. However, it is important to note that intensity-based targets alone are not taken into consideration for this indicator, unless the company also discloses an absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions. It is recommended that the company also report its progress against these scope 3 targets, further emphasizing its commitment to reducing emissions. By aligning its scope 3 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory, the company can further contribute to mitigating climate change.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities 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 has the chance to align 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.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, as well as report progress against this target.

Water withdrawal
While the company reports a quantitative reduction in water consumption intensity, it has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. It has a 2023 target to limit water consumption intensity to the 2019 level, however, it can further its commitment by disclosing a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and reporting progress against the target. Additionally, it has an opportunity to report how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas, as well as engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to shift its focus from philanthropic to commercial activities in order to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods, particularly for vulnerable groups. It can also implement commercial activities to improve the affordability of nutritious foods. Furthermore, setting targets to enhance the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods for vulnerable groups through its commercial activities is an opportunity.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses that it is working on developing new vegetable-based ingredients and consumer products as part of an initiative aimed at supporting the transition towards adopting a more plant-based diet. However, there is an opportunity for the company to demonstrate how it is improving the nutritional quality of its products and to set targets to increase the share of more nutritious products in its portfolio.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it provides nutritional information on its products and how it supports consumers with making healthy food choices through its labelling schemes.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate 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 certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to responsible marketing and its marketing activities to promote healthy food options.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to improve transparency by sharing examples of remediation programs when instances of child labour are discovered in its operations. It should also outline the steps it is taking to enhance its suppliers’ ability to prevent child labour practices. Although the company currently bans its suppliers from employing child labour, it could strengthen this policy by mandating the implementation of an age-verification system.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain such as a prohibition to pay recruitment fees, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds 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.

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.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to outline the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. In addition, while the company has an established mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns, it could explicitly state that all stakeholder are free to raise concerns and complaints without fear of reprisals.

Moreover, the company has an opportunity to adopt a policy that defines its approach to lobbying and political engagement. It could further clarify its stance by explicitly stating its non-involvement in political contributions and divulging expenditures linked to lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose its methods for monitoring supplier health and safety performance. Additionally, although the company claims it pays a minimum wage, an opportunity exists to commit to a living wage by establishing a time-bound target. It could also elucidate its process for determining a living wage for the regions where it operates. Relatedly, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it could add a requirement for them to pay a living wage, and disclose how it supports the payment.

Moreover, while the company is engaged in women’s empowerment initiatives, it could take a more explicit stance by committing to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could further report information such as the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
While the company is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and is committed to promoting its ten core principles, there is an opportunity to formalize this commitment by disclosing a policy statement that emphasizes respect for human rights. Also, although the company is committed to upholding specific workers’ rights, it can take this commitment further by encompassing all the ILO fundamental rights throughout its operations and supply chain.

Furthermore, the company can elaborate on its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its own operations. While the company discloses a tool for CSR assessment of its suppliers, it can specify its human rights due diligence, including the identification of human rights risks and impacts in the supply chain. This could be followed by an outline of the process used to assess and identify its salient human rights issues. Moreover, the company could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.