Evonik

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.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups, including personal or remote discussions, meetings, site visits, whistleblower system, surveys, sustainability reporting, through its website and through social media.

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 is committed to reducing its absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 25% between 2021 and 2030. It also discloses this commitment and reports progress on these targets. Additionally, the company works on reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitment, has policies or engages in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. It strives to reduce and recycle the packaging used for its products, increase the proportion of recyclable packaging and reduces the weight of its plastic liners.

Water withdrawal
The company showcases its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations, while also reporting the amount of water withdrawn from water-stressed areas. Furthermore, the company actively collaborates with suppliers to mitigate water withdrawal.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company discloses a global tax strategy and specifies that the responsibility for this strategy lies with the chief financial officer. It also has a policy that prohibits bribery and corruption, complemented by a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to report concerns or complaints related to bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to the health and safety of its workers and expects its business relationships to make a similar commitment. It also discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of these business relationships. The company publicly states limitations on work hours, specifying that workers shall not exceed 48 hours in a regular workweek or 60 hours including overtime.

The company also discloses workforce demographics, including the proportion of its workforce for each employee category by age group and gender. Committed to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the company has set targets to achieve 23% female representation at the top two management levels and 30% for other managers by 2023; it also discloses that 30% of its board members are women.

Respect human rights
The company has publicly available policy statements committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights, both for its own operations and its suppliers. It describes the processes for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its own operations and its supply chain. It also discloses what it considers to be its salient human rights issues and has a global system in place to act on, prevent, mitigate, or remediate these issues; this system includes its supply chain. Additionally, the company indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers as well as to all external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
While the company discloses its membership in some of trade associations, it has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member of for all jurisdictions where it operates. 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 during its stakeholder engagement activities.

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

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company is aiming to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. It has also disclosed a commitment to reducing scope 3 emissions in all upstream categories and the specific category of “downstream transportation and distribution” by 11% between 2021 and 2030. However, it’s important to note that this indicator considers targets across all categories. Although the company has committed to the SBTi target of “well below 2 °C”, there is no evidence indicating that its scope 3 targets are aligned with a 1.5°C trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company could disclose activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains. While it has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it has an opportunity to cover all high-risk commodities.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report progress against them.

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
Although the company sets targets to reduce water consumption, absolute water use, and water intensity, it could further enhance its reporting by disclosing a target to decrease water withdrawal across its operations and providing updates on its progress.

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, it can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

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 is building 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 workers recruited.

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
For its operations, the company prohibits the collection and retention of identity documents and discloses related expectations for its suppliers. However, it has an opportunity to translate expectations for suppliers into policy requirements. Furthermore, it could disclose a prohibition to pay recruitment for its value chain. To conclude, the company could indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Act ethically
The company could outline the process for identifying bribery and corruption risks within its own operations, and while it has a Code of Conduct for suppliers prohibiting bribery and corruption, it still has room to strengthen this by including explicit anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships.

Although the company mentions its approach to lobbying and political engagement in its Code of Conduct and Sustainability Report, there is an opportunity to formalise this stance in a public policy document. While the company states it makes political contributions in accordance with internal regulations, it could further clarify by disclosing whether these contributions are exceptions and what criteria guide them.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it pays its employees a minimum wage, it has an opportunity to set a time-bound target for committing to pay a living wage and to disclose how it determines what constitutes a living wage in the regions where it operates. Additionally, although the company has set wage expectations for its suppliers, it could go further by requiring them to pay a living wage and disclosing how it supports this requirement.