ECOM Agroindustrial

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.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a goal of reducing its Scope 1,2 and 3 emissions to net zero by 2050.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has reduced pesticide use by 15-20% in its sourcing practices by adopting new hybrids that are 10–20% more productive than traditional varieties.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, including working with experts in soil on a regenagri® project and supporting farms to transition to regenerative farming techniques that increase organic soil matter, encourage biodiversity.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Child labour
The company has implemented a digitized Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) that covers farmers in the supply chain and surrounding communities. It works with the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) to implement this system. Additionally, the company’s coffee division has been working on projects in Central America to support the children of coffee pickers. They have set up mobile education centers to ensure that these children can continue learning while their parents work. Moreover, support centers have been established to provide education, care, and nutrition to these children throughout the workday.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company is assessing living income gaps across its origin-sourced supply chains, and by the end of 2023, it plans to establish a roadmap to address these gaps. Also, it has established long-term purchasing relationships with farmers and has various programs to support them to build their capacity, diversify their income and facilitate access to finances and markets. Also, it assists them in obtaining certifications, which enables them to trade in higher value markets and access credit and better technologies.It also expects its suppliers to engage in similar practices and supports them to achieve these goals.

Act ethically
The company discloses a global tax strategy and the Chief Financial Office has responsibility for its global tax strategy. It also has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Furthermore, 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 workers. Additionally, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements as well as a target to have 100% of ECOM origin-sourced supply chains covered by the Gender Equity Index and improvement plans.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. Moreover, the company provides a case study on how it has conducted a study with Solidaridad West Africa, looking at children’s involvement in cocoa farming as part of its Nigeria Resilient Cocoa Farmers Programme. Furthermore, it discloses the results along with activities taken or planned to be taken to address the issues and remediate or take action on the identified child labour cases. Also, 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
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 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, 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 its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and ecosystem conversion. However, 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 reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and report progress against these targets. Additionally, the company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions targets can potentially be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Furthermore, the company has the opportunity to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and report progress against these targets. Similarly, the company’s scope 3 emissions targets have the potential to be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities and time-bound, group-wide targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to optimise the use of fertilisers in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against it. While it states that it strives to use the lowest amount of pesticides, it has an opportunity to disclose a timebound target and report progress against it.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its target(s) for reducing food loss and waste (FLW) as well as report on the progress made towards achieving these target(s). Furthermore, the company has a chance to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 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.

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.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and activities to address malnutrition and food insecurity.

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, the company can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized 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 programs when cases of child labour are found in its operations. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could also require them to have an age-verification system in place. Additionally, the company reports the number of identified cases of children performing the worst forms of child labour in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. However, it could improve by providing an analysis of trends to demonstrate progress in relation to the latter.

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.

Act ethically
The company could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Additionally, it could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document. The company also has an opportunity to specify that it does not make political contributions and to divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers, it has an opportunity to use stronger commitment language. Additionally, it has an opportunity to disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers.

The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage, and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Furthermore, it could disclose how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers.

The company could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Also, it could disclose the representation of women on the highest governance body and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its workforce.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing it to respect the human rights that the ILO has declared to be fundamental rights at work. Additionally, the company could describe the process for identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, including its suppliers, as well as the process for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues. Moreover, the company could establish a global system to address these salient human rights issues by implementing preventive, mitigative, or remedial measures.