Blue Diamond Growers

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates. It discloses that it is a member of the California Chamber of Commerce, and reports the list of its industry partners.

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. It identifies water, pollinators, climate, packaging and pesticides as the top five material issues for its stakeholders.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices. It includes the California Almond Stewardship Platform launched in 2009, which has been benchmarked to the internationally recognized Sustainable Agriculture Initiative.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company enables farmers to act more strategically in their relationships with buyers through its cooperative model. It provides growers resources, facilitates sharing best practices and advocates for their interests within local, state, federal and foreign governmental levels.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses the proportion of its workforce for each employee category by gender and by race or ethnicity. It reports the gender of its board of directors and leadership team.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses that it has a sustainability steering committee to provide advice related to sustainability of its business processes and discuss the results of its materiality assessment. However, it has an opportunity to strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by designating an individual or body to implement its sustainability strategy and by assigning decision-making and oversight to its highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to sustainability targets/objectives. 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 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
While the company specifies which stakeholder groups it corresponds to, it has an opportunity to explain how it engages with these stakeholders, disclose issues raised during such activities, and reveal the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement.

Sustainable development strategy
The company has an opportunity to disclose group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company discloses the proportion of its scope 1 and 2 emissions to its total GHG emissions. It also reveals that it has redesigned its internal storage network and distribution strategy which helped avoid emissions. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose reductions in scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and set time-bound targets aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree pathway.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose targets to optimise the use of fertilisers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against the targets.

Plastic use and packaging waste
While the company discloses that 90% of its retail packaging is recyclable, it has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

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 discloses that its California farms use less water in growing almonds in comparison to 1990 values, and reports a 20% reduction in water use at its Sacramento facility in fiscal year 2022. However, it has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity 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 discloses that it is the first value-added almond ingredient handler to attain level 2 SQF 2000 certification. However, it 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, the it can also highlight the percentage of food suppliers who are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to prohibit child labour in its supply chain and establish 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.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company is a cooperative and discloses how it purchases almonds directly from farmers. It also states that it provides year-round educational opportunities to growers to promote the production of high quality almonds. However, it could provide more details on how it improves farmers’ income resiliency through its procurement practices. Also, it has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions.

Forced labour
The company has the opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain. Specifically, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees, the retention of workers’ personal documents, and the restriction of workers’ freedom of movement. Furthermore, 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.

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 direct suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy on bribery and corruption, and include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationships’ contracts. Additionally, it can establish a process to address related issues, and introduce a grievance mechanism for stakeholder complaints.

Moreover, while the company discloses that its political action committee provides opportunity to build relationships with members of agriculture and almond industries, it can disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement. It could also clarify its non-participation in political contributions, and transparently reveal lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to its operations and supply chain workers’ health and safety by disclosing a policy statement and providing evidence of monitoring suppliers’ compliance. Additionally, it could set a time-bound target for ensuring all workers receive a living wage, describe the living wage determination methodology, and disclose strategies to support suppliers in paying this wage standard.

Although the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, it could also disclose the representation of women on the highest governance body and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and the fundamental rights at work declared by the ILO in its operations and supply chain. Additionally, it could describe a comprehensive process for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain. It could further outline its process for identifying its salient human rights issues. Moreover, it could introduce a global system to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues.