General Mills

Lobbying and advocacy
The company reports some of its trade associations of which it is a member. It could further disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions where it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company’s stakeholder engagement activities cover the material parts of its value chain. It engages with stakeholders in the 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.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reports progress against these targets. It shows leadership by aligning all its GHG emissions reduction targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Animal welfare
The company discloses a target that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain and reports progress against the target.

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

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is involved in reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging. It not only engages in activities aimed at minimising plastic consumption but also ensures the disclosure of quantitative data on plastic reduction efforts and the adoption of sustainable packaging materials.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities and targets to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, and reports progress against the targets.

Water withdrawal
The company takes steps to reduce water withdrawal in its own operations, and also discloses the amount of water used in water-stressed areas.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has announced that it utilises a non-interpretive front-of-pack label. It could take a step further by switching to an interpretive government-endorsed front-of-pack labelling system. Additionally, the company provides information about the percentage of products on which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
General Mills invests in a programme with Musim Mas Group to integrate independent smallholders in Indonesia into the sustainable palm oil supply chain. The programme supports the capacity building of village extension officers who provide good agricultural practice, financial literacy, and NDPE training and resources to smallholders. Additionally, it supports smallholder farmer communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire through various means. These include providing trainings, enhancing their access to agricultural inputs, strengthening agricultural cooperatives, and helping them diversify their sources of income.

Forced labour
The company prohibits the payment of any recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, and it does not retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement in its supply chain.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. It also has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a public policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and extend this expectation to its business relationships. It also discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships.

The company publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses that 50% of the board members are women. Furthermore, the company reports the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by gender, and by race or ethnicity.

Respect human rights
The company has publicly available policy statements committing it to respect human rights and the ILO fundamental rights at work, and expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, the company describes the process for identifying and assessing its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and supply chain, and provides a case study describing how it has acted on a salient human rights risk. The company also indicates 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 discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability, but it could further link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Moreover, it 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
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it could 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 materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and soil health but could further establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While the company reports against some targets including climate and soil health, it has an opportunity 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 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Animal welfare
While the company has a target that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain, it has an opportunity to make it applicable to all species, geographies, and products.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and reports progress against the target. While the company sets relevant expectations on suppliers to reduce water withdrawal, it has an opportunity to further engage with them on the issue.

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 currently provides examples of reformulated products, but it has the potential to enhance its reporting by including information on its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the inclusion of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in all of its offerings. While the company does disclose that 40% of General Mills’ global volume met Nutrition-Forward standards in 2022, there is an opportunity for further transparency by sharing how these nutrition criteria align with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines. Additionally, the company could consider setting a sales-based target to increase the proportion of nutritious products in accordance with these established guidelines.

Child labour
The company could provide examples of remediation programmes when it discover cases of child labour in its operations. Although the company forbids suppliers from child labour practices and expects them to submit a Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) upon request, it could require an age verification system that applies to all suppliers.

Furthermore, the company has implemented a Cocoa Sustainability Initiative, which involves community awareness programmes aimed at mitigating and preventing child labour. However, it could further elaborate on its efforts to enhance its suppliers’ capacity to prevent child labour impacts.

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 has an opportunity to disclose a prohibition to pay recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to indicate how it is building 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.

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. It could also have a policy setting out its political engagement approach. While it states that political contributions can be made only after approval from the operating executive, the general counsel and the vice president of government relations, it could further clarify if these are made only by exception and outline the criteria for making them.

Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose the expenditures in all locations where it carries out lobbying activities or specify that it only does so in specific countries or regions. The company also has an opportunity to add a requirement to third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
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 how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. While the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it could add a requirement for them to pay a living wage, and disclose how it supports the payment.

The company also has an opportunity to disclose time-bound targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment. Additionally, it could report the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, by significant locations of operation.