CF Industries

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses the list of its membership of association.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities. Furthermore, its stakeholder engagement covers nature, nutrition, and social areas.

Sustainable development strategy
The company reports consistently against all its sustainability targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company discloses its scope 3 emissions and has a target to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 10% by 2030 against a baseline year of 2020. Further, it discloses its goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company discloses a target to optimise the use of fertilisers in its production and/or sourcing practices, and reports progress against it.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

Water withdrawal
The company actively showcases their commitment to reducing water withdrawal within their own operations. They also provide disclosure stating that none of their withdrawals came from areas facing high water stress. This information is determined by cross-referencing the facility withdrawal areas against both the World Resources Institute (WRI) Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas and the WWF Water Risk Filter.

Workforce nutrition
The company has implemented a nutrition education programme for its employees through establishing health centres at all of its manufacturing facilities and off-site service distribution locations to offer access to well-being services.

Child labour
The company verifies the age of workers recruited in its own operations.

Act ethically
The company discloses that its Vice President of Tax, who reports to the Chief Financial Officer, is responsible for its global tax strategy. It has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships, and provides a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has publicly available policy statements committing to the respect of health and safety for both its own workers and those of its business relationships. It discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business partners and reveals that it pays all workers in the US and Canada a living wage. The company provides data on the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements, broken down by age group, gender, and race or ethnicity for each employee category. Additionally, the company has set a time-bound target to achieve 30% representation of females and persons of color in senior leadership roles by 2025.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to the respect of human rights and indicates that it provides a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers as well as to external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company’s activities.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability and climate performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in nature-related objectives and social issues. While stating that the board of directors has the expertise in sustainability, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose whether its highest governance body has specific 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 its process, including channels and frequencies, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond its 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 how external stakeholders are involved in the process. Furthermore, while the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has reported an increase in both its direct Scope 1 and indirect Scope 2 emissions compared to the previous year. There is an opportunity for the company to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in these scopes. In fact, the company has disclosed its target to reduce carbon emissions intensity by 25% by 2030, with the ultimate goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether the company’s net zero target covers both scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. To ensure transparency, the company should report its progress in relation to these scope 1 and 2 targets. Moreover, there is an opportunity for the company’s emission targets in scopes 1 and 2 to be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Similarly, the company should also consider reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, reporting progress against its scope 3 targets and aligning its targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company 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 has an opportunity to set a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal within its own operations, and also to report its progress towards achieving this target. Furthermore, the company can engage with its suppliers to decrease water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to engage in nutrition-sensitive activities that contribute to enhancing the nutritional quality and variety of crops.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of other workforce nutrition programmes, such as workplace breastfeeding support and healthy food offerings. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to implement workforce nutrition programmes for its supply chain workers.

Child labour
The company could provide examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations. Although the company assesses suppliers on child labour by means of EcoVadis’ annual questionnaire, it could indicate how it is building their capacity to prevent child labour impacts. It also has in place expectations for them on the prohibition of child labour for its suppliers but could disclose related policy requirements including the use of an age verification system for the workers recruited.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company supports initiatives to improve the sustainability of the farms in in Sub-Saharan Africa and the U.S. but it has an opportunity to demonstrate how it improves farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships. Also, it could identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to address certain issues in its operations and supply chain. These include prohibiting the payment of recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, as well as retaining workers’ personal documents and restricting their freedom of movement. In addition to implementing additional assurances and conducting supplier visit audits to address forced labor concerns, the company could also communicate its efforts to build the capacity of its suppliers in order to prevent such labor abuses.

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.

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. It discloses its entry level wages relative to local minimum wage in the US and Canada but has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or direct suppliers that are paid a living wage that is enough to maintain a decent standard of living for employees and their families.

Act ethically
The company could describe its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks and impacts in its own operations and specific locations. While its Code of Corporate Conduct outlines the company’s approach to lobbying and political engagement, there is an opportunity to formalize this in a public policy document. The company states it makes political contributions where legally permissible, but could further disclose if these are exceptional cases and the criteria involved. Although the company provides some information on lobbying expenditures, it could either disclose these for all locations where it lobbies or specify that it is limited to certain regions. Additionally, the company has the opportunity to require third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose its methodology for determining a living wage in the regions where it operates, and while it has set wage expectations for its suppliers, it could require them to pay a living wage and detail how it supports this requirement. Although the company has a statement on gender equality and women’s empowerment, it has the opportunity to formalize this stance in a public policy document. The company reveals that 23.08% of its board is composed of women and discloses the mean and median gender pay gap for its UK operations, but it has not yet disclosed the ratio of basic salary and remuneration between women and men in its total direct operations workforce, categorized by employee type and location.

Respect human rights
The company discloses commitments to respect the ILO’s fundamental rights at work but could strengthen these into formal commitments. It expects its suppliers to respect specific workers’ rights but has an opportunity to reference all ILO fundamental rights. While the company states it has conducted a modern slavery risk assessment of its suppliers, there is no evidence it describes the process for identifying human rights risks in specific locations or activities, either in its own operations or through business relationships. The company has the opportunity to describe its process for assessing salient human rights issues, disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment, and present a global system to manage these concerns effectively.