Darden Restaurants

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

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company reduces its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions.

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 policy against bribery and corruption and incorporates anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business partners. It also provides a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to report concerns about bribery and corruption. Furthermore, the company has a policy outlining its approach to lobbying and political engagement and discloses its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a public policy requiring its business partners to uphold worker health and safety standards. It discloses that none of its employees are part of a collective bargaining agreement. The company provides data on the gender and racial or ethnic composition of its workforce by employee category, and reports that 30% of its board members are women.

Respect human rights
The company states that it has a human rights grievance mechanism available to all workers, as well as to external stakeholders who may be adversely affected 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. While the company states that the board of directors has expertise in sustainability, it could disclose if the highest governance body has expertise in its most material sustainability topics including nutrition, climate, 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 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 its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts. While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain and 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 1,2 and 3 emissions in alignment with a 1.5-degree trajectory, as well as report progress against these targets. While there is evidence that the company reduces its Scope 1 and 2 emissions, it can also consider reducing its scope 3 emissions.

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.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report progress against these targets. Additionally, the company can align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3 (50% reduction by 2030).

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, as well as report progress against this target.

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.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate that 100% of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme/certification programme or other widely recognised (industry-specific) certification. Additionally, it can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

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 and to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions. Also, it could adopt procurement practices and develop supply chain relationships that improve farmers’ income resilience.

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.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to elaborate on how it identifies bribery and corruption risks in its own operations. While it has a publicly disclosed statement concerning the ethical use of political contributions, it has not made it clear that it abstains from making such contributions altogether. Additionally, the company could disclose requirements for third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
My apologies for the oversight. The company could disclose a detailed policy on worker health and safety, and clarify how it monitors the health and safety practices of its suppliers. While it pays minimum wage, the company could set a time-bound target for paying a living wage and specify the methodology for determining this wage in different regions. The company could require its suppliers to pay a living wage and disclose how it ensures this is implemented. Although committed to diversity, the company could publicly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment, set time-bound targets for achieving gender equality, and disclose the gender pay gap in various categories and locations within its operations.

Respect human rights
The company could strengthen its commitment to human rights by publicly disclosing a policy that aligns with both general human rights principles and the ILO’s fundamental rights at work. This policy could also be extended to its suppliers, requiring them to adhere to all ILO core labour rights. In addition to these policies, the company has the opportunity to outline processes for identifying human rights risks and impacts, especially salient human rights issues, both in its own operations and across its supply chain. It could also go a step further by disclosing the results of its human rights risk assessments and implementing a global system to manage and mitigate identified risks.