DSM

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the channels it uses to engage with its employees, customers, suppliers, and investors. The company could also states its engagement channels with society. Furthermore, the company’s stakeholder engagement activities cover nature, nutrition, and social areas.

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 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 scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, indicating a commitment to addressing climate change and reducing their overall environmental impact. The company shows leadership by aligning all these targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory, showing its commitment to addressing climate change. Furthermore, it reports progress on these targets as well as its emission reductions.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains. It also discloses the proportion of high-risk commodities which are conversion-free.

Water withdrawal
The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company consistently demonstrates its commitment to addressing malnutrition through various initiatives. One notable partnership is with the World Food Programme, where the company provides technical expertise, financial support, and marketing assistance to enhance the availability and affordability of fortified, nutritious foods. For instance, in Bangladesh, this collaboration has empowered over 70 small and medium-sized enterprises to produce fortified rice. Moreover, approximately 200 retailers and millers received technical support while 400,000 school-age children benefited from fortified rice. Another example is the company’s partnership with UNICEF to leverage its core business assets in Nigeria, with the aim of scaling up access to micronutrient powders.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that 100% of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognised food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
The company has implemented a nutrition education program for its employees and expanded its workforce nutrition initiative to supply chain workers through the ImpAct4Nutrition (I4N) platform. Additionally, it discloses that 69% of its workforce has access to food through canteens and vending machines.

Living wage
The company discloses that it has assessed the wage levels of 68% of its workforce against Wageindicator’s data and reports that all of them are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
The company publicly discloses its commitment to protect personal data. Additionally, it discloses its global tax strategy and reveals an executive-level individual responsible for overseeing this strategy.

Moreover, the company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption. It also maintains an established grievance mechanism designed for stakeholders to raise related concerns. Furthermore, the company explicitly specifies that it refrains from making political contributions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to prioritize the health and safety of workers, extending this commitment to its business relationships.

Additionally, it is committed to ensuring a living wage for all its employees. It calculates the living wage following the Anker method, referencing the Wage Indicator for the living wage benchmark. The company also reveals the proportion of its direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Furthermore, the company publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It discloses the percentage of women for each employee category and reports a 50% female board representation. The company targets a minimum 30% female representation in its executive team and sets a 40% diversity goal for its global business and functional teams by 2025.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labor rights, extending this commitment to its business relationships. Additionally. the company describes the process it uses to identify human rights risks and impacts related to its operations. It further outlines the procedure it employs to assess human rights risks and discloses its salient human rights issues.  Moreover, the company presents a case study detailing how it has acted on a salient human rights risk issue.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in nature-related objectives and social issues. Moreover, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose whether its highest governance body has specific 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 engagement activities.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including nutrition, ecosystem conversion, climate and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain.

Ecosystem conversion
While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it has an opportunity to specify whether the target is limited to certain certification models that are aligned with DCF (e.g. RSPO Segregated) or whether it includes other non-aligned models (e.g. RSPO Mass Balance).

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

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations and to report progress against those reductions. Additionally, the company could set a time-bound target for reducing water withdrawal in its operations and subsequently report progress related to this target. Furthermore, it ca enhance its performance by engaging with suppliers in order to collaboratively reduce water withdrawal.

Food safety
The company has an opportinity to disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose its workplace breastfeeding support programme or policy. Furthermore, while it provides information on the share of the workforce that has access to food via its canteens and vending machines, it could provide information on the types of meals offered and how it defines healthy offerings.

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.

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.

Living wage
The company states that it uses the Anker methodology and WageIndicator’s benchmark methodology to calculate living wages for employees in its own operations in different locations. However, it has an opportunity to describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it sources. Also, it could set a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to describe the process its uses to identify bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities that pertain to its own operations.

Additionally, while the company mandates its suppliers to abstain from all forms of corruption, it can further enhance its stance by incorporating anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses into contracts with business relationships. Furthermore, specifying the consequences of breaching such clauses could add clarity to this commitment.

Moreover, there is an opportunity for the company to create a policy that outlines its approach to lobbying and political engagement, and divulge its expenditures related to lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. In addition, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it has an opportunity to add a requirement for them to pay a living wage. Moreover, the company has an opportunity to enhance transparency by disclosing the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company states that it identifies human risks within its supply chain and conducts supplier audits. However, there is an opportunity for the company to provide more detail regarding the specific process it employs to identify human rights risks and impacts within its supply chain.

Furthermore, the company has joined the UN Global Compact Business and Human Rights Accelerator Programme which will support in identifying salient human rights impacts, establishing a due diligence process, and developing an actionable plan. There is however an additional opportunity for the company to outline a global framework that addresses, prevents or mitigates the identified salient human rights issues.