Cargill

Stakeholder engagement
The company engages stakeholders in vital areas such as nature, biodiversity, nutrition, and social issues, demonstrating its commitment to broad sustainability concerns.

Sustainable development strategy
The company has a strong sustainable development strategy. Moreover, Cargill consistently reports against all its sustainability targets, showcasing a commitment and leadership in its sustainable strategy.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and provides regular reports on the progress made towards these targets. Furthermore, there is a time-bound objective in place to lower the company’s scope 3 emissions, and progress against these targets is reported as well.

Ecosystem conversion
The company’s conversion-free target covers all its high-risk commodities. The company discloses some activities and time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains. It also discloses the proportion of high-risk commodities which are conversion-free.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging, in specific regions.

Water withdrawal
The company provides reports on the amount of water it withdraws for its own operations in water-stressed areas. Additionally, the company actively collaborates with suppliers to minimize water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company committed to ensuring that 100 percent of its global edible oils portfolio will comply with the WHO’s recommended standard of a maximum of two grams of industrially-produced trans-fatty acids fats/oils by the end of 2023. The company also provides evidence of collaborating with value chain partners (food and beverage processors) to remove trans fatty acids.

Child labour
The company discloses that it works with its supply chain to eliminate child labour by using the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) since 2016.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company demonstrates its commitment to support farmers by empowering them to strengthen their bargaining power. One example of this is the Hatching Hope project in Kenya that provides smallholder farmers access to inputs, markets, and financing across the poultry value chain. Also, the company provides leadership training, financial knowledge, and sustainable entrepreneurship education to female shrimp producers in Mexico and Ecuador. Further, it reports on the impacts of its Yellow Corn project in the Philippines in which the farmers were able to increase their income by 27%.

Forced labour
The company discloses a prohibition to use any recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job and to retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement for its operations and supply chain.

Land rights
The company has a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights.

Act ethically
The company is committed to protecting personal data and publicizes this commitment. It also has a policy that firmly prohibits bribery and corruption. In addition, the company includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in all contracts with its direct business relationships. To address concerns and complaints related to bribery and corruption, the company has established a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to utilize. Moreover, the company openly communicates its approach to lobbying and political engagement through a policy statement.

Provide and promote decent work
The company publicly states its commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers as well as expects its business relationships to abide by the same commitment through a readily available policy statement. Furthermore, the company transparently discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. In line with its dedication to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the company publicly commits to achieving gender parity in leadership globally by 2030.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect human rights, including the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, the company expects its suppliers to uphold the ILO core labour rights as stated in its public policy statement. Moreover, the company demonstrates its commitment to human rights by providing a grievance mechanism that is accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be negatively affected by its operations.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to climate; however, it has an opportunity to link this policy to improvement in social issues. While the company states that the Board of Directors has expertise in nutrition, it has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s other most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
While the company discloses some of the trade associations it is member of, it has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions where it operates. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to 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 the channels it uses to engage with stakeholder groups, beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company states that it has a materiality assessment; however, it has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including the outcome of the process. While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including social inclusion, ecosystem conversion, water and climate, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain, such as nutrition and soil health.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to improve its performance by aligning its scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions reduction targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
While the company discloses a target to source from regenerative agriculture sources, it has an opportunity to disclose a target to optimise the use of fertilisers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against it.

Food loss and waste
The company has the opportunity to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report progress against these targets. Additionally, it 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
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging across its entire operations and supply chain.

Water withdrawal
The company has the opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. Additionally, it can disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and provide progress reports on the target.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose the outcomes of its nutrition-sensitive activities and provide data demonstrating how its initiatives are contributing to addressing malnutrition and/or increasing the availability and variety of nutritious foods.

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. Furthermore, the company can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and to indicate a progressive trend in eliminating child labour from its supply chain. 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 system for the workers recruited.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company discloses that it uses its own Farm Economic Model to estimate livelihoods at a household level by taking account factors such as household size, annual yields, price, input costs and alternative income-generating activities as part of its Cargill Cocoa Promise program in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire but it has an opportunity to disclose how it assesses living income gaps and which living income benchmarks it has identified. Furthermore, the company has set up initiatives such as the RegenConnect programme to improve the productivity of farmers but it has an opportunity to demonstrate how it improves farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships.

Forced labour
While the company provides training to suppliers to address forced labour, it has an opportunity to disclose how it builds suppliers’ capacity to prevent and address 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 could require its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rights holders and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to disclose 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 could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose a publicly available policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions. The company could also disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company reveals it tracks the health and safety of its business partnerships, it could be more specific about the methods used for monitoring. Concerning its oil palm plantation work, the firm states it provides a living wage to staff. However, it could extend this promise to all workers. Although the company conducts living wage assessments, it should detail the methodology used to establish what constitutes a living wage in its operating regions. Additionally, the firm could strengthen wage standards for suppliers by mandating a living wage and disclose steps taken to enforce this. The company reports the percentage of women in global leadership but hasn’t confirmed achieving at least 30% female representation on its top governance body. While it reveals the mean and median pay gaps between genders for its UK-based legal entities, it doesn’t disclose the ratio of women’s to men’s basic salary and compensation in its entire direct workforce.

Respect human rights
The company has identified human rights risks and impacts in its own operations. To provide more clarity, the company should describe the risk identification process. While the company states that it conducts general due diligence, it should specify that this includes human rights due diligence for identifying risks and impacts in its supply chain. Additionally, the company discloses its salient human rights issues, but it should provide a clearer disclosure of the process used to assess the significance of these risks and the results of its human rights risk assessment. Lastly, it has the chance to disclose a global system to act on its salient human rights issues, aiming to prevent, lessen, or remedy them.