Dairy Farmers of America

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.

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

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of its workers and establishes similar expectations from its suppliers.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect human rights. Additionally, it indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, as well as 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 designating an individual or body to implement its sustainability strategy and by assigning decision-making and oversight to its 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 whether 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, 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
The company has an opportunity to disclose group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, it could report consistently on progress against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to disclose reductions in scope 1 and 2 and scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and set time-bound targets aligned with the Paris agreement’s 1.5 degree pathway.

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

Antibiotic use and growth promoting substances
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the (prophylactic) use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances. It could also disclose targets to phase out the prophylactic use of antibiotics across all species, geographies, and products, and to report progress against them.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose its efforts to avoid ecosystem conversion, including deforestation or restoration. The company could develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

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 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.

Child labour
The company is a member of the Suppliers Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX) and thus, its plants have completed the SEDEX Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) and responsible supply chain activities on labour rights have been audited. However, it could disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and describe how it works with its supply chain to eliminate child labour. Further, it has an opportunity to disclose child labour requirements in its contractual agreement with suppliers as a prohibition of child labour and the use of an age-verification system for the workers recruited.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has set up initiatives to improve the sustainability of the farms but it has an opportunity to demonstrate how it improves farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships. Also, it could demonstrate how it identifies living income benchmarks and assesses 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 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 follows specific regulations on bribery and corruption, but could enhance its approach by disclosing a commitment prohibiting such practices. It could also detail how it identifies its bribery and corruption risks and impact. Additionally, while the company requires suppliers to comply with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws, it could further strengthen this by adding relevant clauses to contracts with business relationships.

Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to outline its lobbying and political engagement strategy, clarify its non-participation in political contributions, and reveal its lobbying expenditure.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses supply chain audits for health and safety performance, but could clarify that these audits include all suppliers. Moreover, while the company acknowledges compliance with wage laws and supplier wage expectations, it could strengthen its commitment by setting a time-bound target for achieving a living wage. Additionally, the company could require suppliers to ensure a living wage for their workers and describe its support methods for this goal.

Furthermore, the company’s commitment to equal employment opportunities provides an opportunity to pledge to gender equality and women’s empowerment. By establishing time-bound targets and sharing data such as female representation in the highest governing body and the gender-based salary ratio, the company could underscore its commitment.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement that commits it to respecting specific workers’ rights within its operations and supply chain. However, there is an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. Although the company has conducted an ESG risk assessment, it could elaborate on how it identifies human rights risks and impacts within its operations and supply chain. It could further provide a more detailed description of its process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Additionally, it has the opportunity to disclose a global system aimed at addressing, preventing, or mitigating these salient human rights issues.