Flour Mills of Nigeria

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

No leading practices were identified for the company in the environment measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the nutrition measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the social inclusion measurement area.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics, as well the outcome of this process in relation to its sustainability strategy, by disclosing its materiality assessment. However, the company has room to improve its performance by disclosing time-bound targets for its most relevant sustainability topics.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has a change leadership team responsible for economic, environmental and social topics, which reports indirectly to the board. Consequently, the latter has an oversight strategy plan and aligns with economic, environmental and social conditions. Flour Mills of Nigeria can strengthen its performance by disclosing its highest governance body’s remuneration policy regarding sustainability.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has developed a stakeholder engagement approach which includes several channels of communication. In addition, the company discloses its engagement strategy including stakeholder categories, areas of interest, feedback and current concern, mode of engagement, frequency and action plan/target. The company has room to improve by disclosing its process for identifying and engaging with stakeholders across its value chain.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
The company does not disclose quantitative evidence to demonstrate that it is reducing its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse (GHG) gas emissions.

Protection of terrestrial natural ecosystems
The company does not disclose activities aimed at achieving deforestation and conversion-free (DCF) supply chains for its relevant high-risk commodities. It has an opportunity to increase its disclosure on commitments to source its high-risk commodities through recognised certification programmes or by disclosing targets for achieving DCF supply chains.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity, and fertiliser and pesticide use
The company does not disclose that it is adopting sustainable production practices that improve soil health and increase agrobiodiversity nor that optimise the use of fertilisers and pesticides.

Water use
While the company discloses its water use, it does not demonstrate quantitative reductions in water withdrawals across its own operations.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company does not disclose that it is reducing its plastic use and transitioning to sustainable forms of packaging.

Food loss and waste
The company does not disclose that it is addressing food loss and waste in its own operations. The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment by demonstrating policies and/or activities that tackle food loss and waste.

Food safety
While the company discloses compliance with national regulations and/or the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene, it has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by disclosing the percentages of its own operations that are certified to a food safety scheme/certification programme recognised by the GFSI certification or other widely recognised (industry-specific) certification.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company does not disclose that it provides nutritional information through clear, transparent and accurate labelling.

Availability of healthy foods
The company does not provide evidence of improving the nutritional quality of its products and of proportionally increasing the sales of healthy and nutritious foods.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
The company does not disclose a commitment and activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods for vulnerable groups.

Responsible marketing
The company does not disclose a responsible marketing policy, nor guidelines specific to marketing to children.

Living wage
The company does not disclose that it pays its workers a living wage or requires its suppliers to do the same. Neither has it set targets to do so in the future

Land rights
The company does not commit to recognising and respecting the legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land of local communities.

Farmer and fisher productivity and resilience
The company improves smallholders farmers and farmers groups’ earnings and standards of living by means of seeds development, fertiliser support, capacity development and knowledge transfer. In addition, Flour Mills of Nigeria partners with the Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria (WFAN) to provide agronomy support to the wheat farmers. There is the opportunity for the company to improve its performance by disclosing the impact of a proportion of its support activities.

No policies or commitments related to respect for human rights were found in the public domain. In addition, Flour Mills of Nigeria shows a lack of disclosure on stakeholder engagement and grievance mechanisms in relation to human rights risks and impact as well. As such, the company demonstrates a lack of responsibility in protecting basic human rights in its operations and supply chains.

Although in its Responsible Business Partner Policy 2019 the company expects its supply chain partners to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers, it lacks quantitative data such as injury rates. Furthermore, the company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements, but these do not cover the practices of its supply chain partners. Moreover, the company has not made commitments towards paying a living wage and can strengthen its commitments and expectations regarding working hours, diversity, and gender equality and women’s empowerment equality in its own operations and supply chain.

Flour Mills of Nigeria publicly commits to protecting personal data through its privacy statement. It however fails to disclose an anti-bribery and anti-corruption commitments. The company has clauses in contracts with its supply chain partners for bribery and corruption, but it fails to disclose a policy prohibiting it, and it is unclear if the grievance channel is accessible to all external stakeholders without fear of reprisals. To conclude, no relevant policies or commitments on other key ethical business topics – responsible tax and lobbying and political engagement – were found in the public domain.