Costco Wholesale

No leading practices were identified in the governance and strategy area.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has targets to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 39% by 2030 compared to a 2020 baseline and it also reports progress against these targets. Additionally, the company reduced its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions compared to the previous year.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is committed to reducing plastic use and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. This is evident through their policies and involvement in activities focused on plastic use reduction. In addition, the company provides quantitative data regarding their efforts to reduce plastic use and adopt sustainable packaging.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company demonstrates its dedication to sustainable fishing and aquaculture by providing qualitative evidence that aligns with environmental sourcing criteria.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Child labour
The company requires suppliers to prohibit child labour and verify the age of recruited workers. Furthermore, it works with its suppliers to eliminate child labour by facilitating remedies and assisting them with child labour compliance.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has been running its Sassandra Cocoa program since 2009, which involves sourcing cocoa beans directly from cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. In addition to providing financing and farmer training, the company also pays premiums to these cooperatives for their quality products.

Forced labour
The company discloses how it works with its supply chain to eliminate forced labour. It addresses the issue of unethical recruitment of workers by working together with CIERTO for the US agricultural products, and partners with LaMP to develop educational materials on compliant international labour sourcing.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and incorporates related clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. It also has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding related misconduct. Moreover, the company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement, and specifies that it does not make political contributions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement that commits it to respecting the health and safety of workers in its operations and supply chain. It also reveals its approach to overseeing the health and safety performance of its business relationships. Additionally, the company provides information on the percentage of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. Moreover, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by gender and racial or ethnic background.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. Furthermore, the company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, as well as all external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by assigning decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. 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 list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, the company can provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, the company 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 how it engages with stakeholders, the issues raised during such activities, and the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement.

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, it has an opportunity to 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 them. Additionally, the company is encouraged to reduce its scope 3 emissions and all of its scope 1,2 and 3 targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Antibiotic use and growth promoting substances
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances. While it discloses a timebound target to phase out the prophylactic use of antibiotics, it has an opportunity to apply it to all species, geographies and products and report progress against it.

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 has an opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report progress against them. Additionally, the company has the chance to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of its efforts to enhance its sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. Additionally, it can share its goals for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture across its entire portfolio and provide updates on the progress made towards achieving these targets.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

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 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 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 disclose its commitment to responsible marketing and its marketing activities to promote healthy food options.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of workforce nutrition programmes.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions.

Forced labour
While the company does not allow suppliers to use recruitment fees or related costs, it has an opportunity to disclose similar commitments for its operations. Furthermore, it could disclose a prohibition to retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement in its value chain. The company also has an opportunity to provide an analysis that demonstrates progress in eliminating forced labour from its supply chain.

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 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 suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Moreover, the company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it pays wages in compliance with applicable wage laws and sets similar expectation from its suppliers, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. It could further require and support suppliers in paying the same wage standard, and explain its method for determining a living wage for regions where it operates. Additionally, while the company commits to diversity, it could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could also disclose related time-bound targets, along with information on the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement on respecting human rights and an opportunity to place it in a formal policy document. While it commits to specific workers’ rights, it could reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, it has identified human rights risks and impacts in its own operations but could describe the risk identification process, both internally and within its supply chain. It could also elaborate on its method for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues.

Moreover, while it discloses its efforts to address human rights issues in business relationships, it could unveil a comprehensive a global system to act on all its salient human rights issues in all its activities.