Danone

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company provides evidence of linking performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company’s stakeholder engagement covers nature, including biodiversity, nutrition and social issues.

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. Furthermore, it has group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain and reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company discloses a time-bound target to reduce its absolute scope 1 and 2 energy and industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 47.2% by 2030, using 2020 as the base year. The company further aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Similarly, it has set a time-bound target to reduce its scope 3 GHG emissions. The company shows leadership by aligning these targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory, showing its commitment to addressing climate change. Progress updates regarding these targets and emission reductions are regularly reported.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains and has time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains. Further, it discloses the proportion of high-risk commodities which are conversion-free.

Food loss and waste
From 2021 to 2022, the company experienced a decrease in the amount of food loss and waste (FLW) it generated. The company not only discloses its FLW reduction targets, but also provides regular reports on its progress towards achieving those targets. It’s worth noting that the company’s FLW reduction targets are in accordance with the goal of SDG 12.3, which aims to reduce FLW by 50% by 2030. Additionally, the company collaborates with its value chain partners to prevent the generation of FLW.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company showcases its commitment by implementing policies and engaging in activities aimed at reducing plastic usage and adopting sustainable packaging. In addition, the company provides transparent and quantitative data regarding its efforts to reduce plastic usage and promote the use of sustainable packaging. The company has also established specific targets, such as reducing virgin polymer production, minimizing overall plastic waste, and increasing the utilization of reusable or refillable packaging. Regular progress reports are produced to track advancements made towards these objectives.

Protein diversification
The company discloses quantitative evidence of increasing alternative proteins within its portfolio.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses its commitment to regenerative agriculture, promoting practices that protect soil, and supporting farmers in a transition towards more resilient agricultural models. It has implemented twenty-five projects focused on improving soil health and sustainable dairy production methods in North America and Brazil. Additionally, it discloses a target to source 30% of the quantities of its key ingredients from farms that have started the transition to regenerative agriculture.

Water withdrawal
The company actively shows its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations and reports the amount of water withdrawn in water-stressed areas. Additionally, the company collaborates with suppliers to further minimize water withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company discloses that in 2022, 55% of Danone’s entities had at least one healthy product in their portfolios targeting lower-income populations or a plan to expand access to such products.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company reports on several key performance indicators related to its products’ improved nutritional profile. For instance, it states that, in 2022, 82% of product volumes sold had no added sugars. Additionally, Danone has also set a target to attain ≥85% volume for dairy, plant-based, water, and aquadrinks rated ≥3.5 stars by the Health Star Rating system by 2025. The company discloses that 88.0% of product volumes sold scored ≥3.5 stars according to the Health Star Rating system, and 89.3% of product volumes sold were compliant with Nutri-Score A or B, remaining stable relative to 2021. These figures demonstrate the company’s use of government-endorsed nutrient profiling systems to assess the nutritional profile of its products in the Essential Dairy and Plant-Based and Waters Categories.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses that it has adopted the Nutri-score and Health Star Rating (HSR) front-of-pack labelling systems. Additionally, the company states that in 2022, 99.2% of its volumes had nutritional on-pack information and 79.3% of its products featured nutritional information on the front of their packaging.

Responsible marketing
The company has a responsible marketing policy specifically designed for children and demonstrates adherence to this policy through third-party audits.

Child labour
The company discloses an age verification system for the workers recruited for its operation and supply chain. Furthermore, it requires suppliers to prohibit child labour.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company works with producers in the United States, Europe, and Russia under long-term Cost Performance Model (CPM) contracts. These contracts, which typically last three to five years, aim to reduce milk price volatility and provide farmers with increased financial stability. In addition, the company offers training and technical support to help farmers transform their practices, ensuring the sustainability of their business models. Also, it reports on the impacts of its projects on farmers’ income.

Forced labour
The company prohibits the use of recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job and also the retention of workers’ personal documents or restrictions on their freedom of movement. This applies to both the company’s operations and its supply chain. In addition, it collaborates with its supply chain partners to eliminate forced labour, which includes providing training and raising awareness. Furthermore, it discloses critical non-conformities from Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) or similar methodology of its suppliers from 2021 and 2022. These audits show a progressive trend as the incidences of forced labour are at a rate of 3.2% and 2.6% respectively.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company focuses on identifying vulnerable groups in relation to health and safety. These groups include workers employed through outside labour providers, as well as those involved in palm oil, cocoa, sugar cane, and fruits agricultural raw materials.

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 publicly commits to safeguarding personal data and discloses a global tax strategy overseen by the Vice President Tax.

Furthermore, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and describes its processes for identifying bribery and corruption risks within the company. In addition to these measures, the company includes anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships, and provides accessible channels for reporting grievances related to bribery and corruption.

Moreover, the company states that it does not make political contributions and requires its third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers. It expects its business relationships to uphold similar health and safety standards, and monitors their performance. Additionally, the company commits to ensure that all overtime work is consensual and compensated at premium rates, and discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Furthermore, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group and gender. It is also a signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles and thus commits to advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. It has set ambitious targets for achieving gender balance in management and the Executive Committee, which is already reflected in its board composition, with 50% representation of women among its 12 directors.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and ILO core labour rights in its operations and supply chain. It describes the process for identifying and assessing its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and supply chain, and discloses its salient human rights issues.

Additionally, it has a global system to take action to prevent, mitigate or remediate salient human rights issues, including a description of how it applies to its supply chain. Furthermore, it indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and all external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
While the company states that the Board of Directors has expertise in CSR or climate, it has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics including nutrition, water, soil health, social inclusion, ecosystem conversion and biodiversity.

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 discloses a general channel available for its employees and other stakeholders to raise their concern. However, it could disclose other channels it uses to engage with each stakeholder group, beyond its materiality assessment or an equivalent. Furthermore, it could disclose an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and report progress against the target.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to shift its focus from philanthropic to commercial activities in order to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods, particularly for vulnerable groups. Furthermore, it can set targets to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods, with a special emphasis on vulnerable groups via its commercial activities.

Food safety
While the company discloses that 95% of its own operations are certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme, it has an opportunity to extend the certifications to 100% of its own operations. Additionally, the company can also disclose the percentage of its food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

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

Child labour
The company commits to taking action if it discovers children are working, whether directly or indirectly. This includes implementing a remediation plan. However, it could provide specific examples of remediation programs when instances of child labour are identified in its operations. While the company does disclose auditing systems for its suppliers regarding child labour, it also has the opportunity to explain how it helps suppliers enhance their ability to prevent and address child labour.

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

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company has an opportunity to recognise the specific health and safety risks to vulnerable groups.

Land rights
It is unclear whether the company requires its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land, paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rightsholders, and negotiating with them to provide adequate compensation.

Act ethically
The company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company could set a time-bound target for achieving living wages for all workers and describe how it determines living wages in different regions. Also, it could add expectations for its suppliers to pay living wages for their workers, and describe how it supports them in doing so. Moreover, it could disclose the salary and remuneration ratios between men and women across employee categories in significant locations.