Colruyt

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 has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions and discloses all categories of its scope 3 emissions.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities working towards conversion-free supply chains.

Food loss and waste
Between 2021 and 2022, there was a quantitative decrease in the amount of FLW generated by the company.

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

Water withdrawal
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses that it made significant improvements to the nutritional composition of its entire range of products. This initiative has resulted in a reduction of 228 tonnes of sugar, 34 tonnes of salt, 251 tonnes of fat, 117 tonnes of saturated fats, and the addition of 39 tonnes of fiber across all product categories.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses it has adopted the Nutri-score front-of-pack labelling system. Furthermore, it discloses the percentage of products for which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

Responsible marketing
The company has a responsible marketing policy tailored to children.

Workforce nutrition
The company has implemented a nutrition education programme via personal nutrition guidance provided by certified (nutrition) coaches, specialists and teachers.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has a target to guarantee cocoa farmers a living income by 2030 and discloses that it pays them a living income reference price for supplying cocoa for its brand products. Additionally, it has developed specific apple varieties in cooperation with Belgian fruit growers who receive guaranteed sales, fair prices and support to develop a profitable crop. Furthermore, it engages in partnerships with Belgian dairy farmers to produce some of its dairy products, ensuring they receive a stable price for their milk production over a five-year period.

Living wage
The company is committed to closing the living wage gap in its banana supply chains. To achieve this, it will follow the IDH Roadmap on Living Wages and utilize the corresponding tools. Additionally, the company will calculate the living wage gap in its supply chains annually using the IDH Salary Matrix.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships and the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. The company also discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and that the percentage of women on the board is 37.5%.

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 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 materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and water, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, it could report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against all its scope 1, 2 and 3 targets. Additionally, the company can align its targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Animal welfare
The company has an opportunity to set animal welfare targets applicable to all species, geographies and products.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities and time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Food loss and waste
The company currently discloses its FLW reduction target(s), but it does not measure progress towards those targets. However, there is an opportunity for the company 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.

Water withdrawal
The company has disclosed its target to reduce total water consumption from rainwater and wastewater by 50% by 2025. However, there is no evidence of a target to reduce water withdrawal within its own operations, nor any progress reports made on this target. Although the company claims that its operations are situated in non water-stressed areas with low water scarcity, it could further enhance transparency by disclosing the proportion of water withdrawals from water-stressed areas within its own operations. Furthermore, the company could also explore opportunities to collaborate with suppliers in order to reduce water withdrawals.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to adopt a nutrient profiling system that aligns with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines and to set a sales-based target to increase the percentage of more nutritious products.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to food safety and demonstrate that its operations and supply chain adhere to food safety standards.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to provide evidence of marketing activities to promote heathier and more nutritious food options (in accordance with a government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines).

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 uses the Amfori BSCI Code of Conduct as a benchmark for all suppliers but could include in its contractual arrangement with suppliers a prohibition of child labour and an age verification system. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

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.

Living wage
The company has committed to paying a living wage for banana workers throughout its international supply chains and close the living wage gap for the bananas sold on the Belgian market by the end of 2027. However, it has an opportunity to set a target for paying a living wage across all its direct suppliers. 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 publicly available policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption and a process for identifying bribery and corruption but could disclose details of this process. It also has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships and disclose a confidential and anonymous mechanism accessible to all stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns and complaints without fear of reprisals. Additionally, the company could have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach and disclose a publicly available policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions. It could also disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities and that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it respects the health and safety of workers and expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers, it could formalise these commitments in a public policy document. The company also has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage, and disclose how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. Additionally, it could disclose a public commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment and time-bound targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could also disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, by significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available statement committing it to respect human rights but has an opportunity to place it in a formal policy document. It also has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights but could reference all ILO fundamental rights at work. Furthermore, it discloses statements expecting its suppliers to respect the ILO’s fundamental rights at work; however, it has an opportunity to place them in a formal policy document. Regarding human rights due diligence, it has an opportunity to disclose how it identifies human rights risks and impacts in its operations and supply chain, as well as the process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. The company could also disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment and a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.