Edeka Zentrale

No leading practices were identified in the governance and strategy area.

No leading practices were identified in the environment area.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company is committed to safeguarding personal data and preventing bribery and corruption. The company incorporates anti-bribery and anti-corruption measures into its contracts with business partners.

Moreover, the company has implemented a whistle-blower platform, which serves as a complaint procedure for reporting any concerns or complaints related to bribery and corruption without fear of reprisals.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement that commits to respecting the health and safety of its workers. In addition, it expects its business relationships to also commit to ensuring the health and safety of their workers.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement that commits it to respecting human rights. Additionally, the company describes the specific process it follows to identify human rights risks and impacts within its operations in different locations or activities. Notably, the company ensures access to a human rights grievance mechanism for all workers and all external stakeholders who may be adversely affected by its actions.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to report on sustainability accountability within its governance structure.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on sustainability-related issues, and whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

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 sustainability strategy with nature and social-related 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.

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
Edeka Zentrale has the opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and track progress towards them. Additionally, the company could 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.

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.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to soil health and agrobiodiversity.

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 could provide examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and indicate how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts. While the company has in place expectations on the prohibition of child labour for its suppliers, it could disclose related policy requirements including the use of an age verification system for the recruited workers.

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.

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 as set out in the relevant part(s) of the VGGT’s or the IFC Performance Standards. Moreover, it could require its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rights holders paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rights holders, and negotiating 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 could describe its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, focusing on its own operations. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to establish a policy outlining its approach to lobbying and political engagement. As part of this, the company could also disclose a publicly available policy statement affirming that it does not make political contributions. Furthermore, it could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities and add a requirement to third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has the opportunity to disclose its approach to monitoring the health and safety performance of its suppliers. While the company states that it pays minimum wage to its employees, it could further demonstrate commitment by disclosing a time-bound target for ensuring all workers receive a living wage and describing how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. While the company currently sets wage expectations for its suppliers, it could enhance its requirements by disclosing a mandate for them to provide a living wage and sharing how it supports such payments.

While the company addresses gender equality and women’s empowerment, it could translate these principles into a public policy document and establish related time-bound targets. It also has the opportunity to disclose that it maintains a minimum of 30% representation of women on the Executive Board. Finally, the company has the opportunity to disclose the gender-based salary and remuneration ratio within its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Respect human rights
The company discloses commitments to uphold the ILO’s fundamental rights at work but has the opportunity to employ stronger language specifically regarding the commitment to collective bargaining.

Additionally, the company could outline its methodology for identifying human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, encompassing its supply chain. It has an opportunity to further elaborate on its process for assessing and identifying its significant human rights concerns, and disclosing the outcomes of the assessment. Moreover, the company has room to establish a comprehensive global framework intended to address, prevent, or mitigate the significant human rights issues it identifies.