Calavo Growers

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 the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions.

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

Water withdrawal
The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that all its own operations are BRC certified, providing evidence to support this claim. Additionally, it discloses that 99.90% of Tier 1 food suppliers are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

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.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, 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 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 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
While the company states that it has a materiality assessment, it has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how external stakeholders are involved in the process. Furthermore, even though it discloses some sustainability objectives including those related to climate, there is room to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the chance to decrease its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to track and report its progress towards these targets. Additionally, the company’s emissions targets could be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose targets to optimise the use of fertilizers 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 describes its activities to reduce plastic use and transition towards sustainable packaging, it has an opportunity to disclose the associated quantitative data.

Water withdrawal
The company has three opportunities for water reduction initiatives. Firstly, it can disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. Secondly, it can disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and subsequently report progress against the target. Lastly, the company can engage with its suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company is involved in the production and distribution of fresh produce, thereby contributing to supporting the availability of nutritious foods. Nevertheless, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat across its processed and prepared food 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.

Child labour
The company could provide examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts. While the company has in place expectations on the prohibition of child labour for its suppliers, it could disclose related policy requirements including the use of an age verification for workers.

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.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to describe its process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in locations and activities covering its operation. Further, while the company has a mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns, it is unclear if complainants can raise concerns without fear of reprisal. Additionally, it has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach. It could further specify in a publicly available statement that it does not make political contributions, and divulge its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses a policy that it strives to provide workers a safe and healthy work environment. However, there is an opportunity to use stronger commitment language, and share details about how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers.

Additionally, while the company states that it offers competitive wages, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. Relatedly, while it has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it could require and support its suppliers in paying its workers a living wage.

Moreover, while it is committed to equal opportunity, it could explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could further disclose related time-bound targets, as well as information on ratio of 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 ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations. Additionally, the company could describe a comprehensive process for identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain. It could further explain how it assesses and identifies its salient human rights issues, and describe how relevant factors, such as geographical, economic and social, are considered. Moreover, it could also reveal a global system to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues.