Golden Agri-Resources

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the frequencies and channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, the company’s stakeholder engagement covers nature, nutrition, and social issues.

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 reduces its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company discloses quantitative evidence on minimising the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices..

Water withdrawal
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations. Additionally, it reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Workforce nutrition
The company discloses that it provides a healthy menu to its employees, which based on medical advice, to promote better nutrition of its workforce.

Child labour
The company verifies the age of workers recruited in its own operations. Additionally, its supply chain teams conduct workshops to address the issue of child labour in plantations while raising awareness and developing action plans.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company demonstrates how it works to improve the income resilience of plasma smallholders by integrating them into its management systems and providing them access to better inputs and heavy equipment rentals, and by helping them secure financing from state-owned banks to sustain their livelihoods during the years it takes for the new seedlings to mature. Also, it has facilitated the formation of an economic institution for smallholders through cooperatives or farmer groups to strengthen smallholder’s position as part of its oil palm trees replanting programme.

Forced labour
The company has a policy that strictly prohibits the use of recruitment fees or any related costs to secure a job, as well as the retention of workers’ personal documents or any restrictions on their freedom of movement within its operations and supply chain. In addition, the company actively collaborates with its supply chain partners to address this issue by reviewing and improving their labor policies. This includes providing recommendations to enhance standard operating procedures (SOPs) and recruitment mechanisms, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the imposition of recruitment fees.

Land rights
The company has a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights. The company, when acquiring, leasing land or making other arrangements discloses its processes to identify legitimate tenure rights holders and negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation. Moreover, it requires its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rights holders paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rights holders, and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Act ethically
The company has a publicly available global tax strategy, which is approved by the highest governance body. Furthermore, the company has a publicly available policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes relevant clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Additionally, it 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 and expects its business relationships to do so. Furthermore, the company publicly states that all overtime work must be consensual and be paid at a premium rate. Moreover, it describes how it works to support the practices of its business relationships in relation to freedom of association and collective bargaining. Additionally, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age and gender.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights and expects suppliers to do so. Furthermore, the company 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 has an opportunity to link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Furthermore, it could 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 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 engagement activities, beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to ecosystem conversion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While the company reports qualitative progress against all its targets, it has an opportunity to disclose quantitative information regarding its current achievement.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the chance to disclose time-bound targets for reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. It also has an opportunity to report progress made towards these targets. Furthermore, the company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions targets can be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Additionally, the company has the opportunity to lower its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. It can do this by disclosing a time-bound target for reducing these emissions and tracking progress against these targets. Moreover, the company’s scope 3 emissions targets can be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it could cover all high-risk commodities.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to optimise the use of fertilizers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against the targets.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report progress against them. Additionally, it has an opportunity to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3 (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.

Water withdrawal
The company has the opportunity to set a time-bound target for reducing water withdrawal in its own operations and regularly report progress. Additionally, the company can also engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

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 provides examples of reformulated products. However, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the presence of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in its entire portfolio. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to adopt a nutrient profiling system and set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products, aligning with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has a chance to implement front-of-pack labels or other consumer-facing nutrition labels to assist customers in making healthier food choices. Additionally, the company can disclose the percentage of products that have been included in their front-of-pack labeling schemes.

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.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of other workforce nutrition programmes, such as nutrition-focused health check, nutrition education, and workplace breastfeeding support. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to implement workforce nutrition programmes for its supply chain workers.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and to indicate progress on addressing the topic within its supply chain. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to provide an analysis of trends demonstrating progress in relation to eliminating forced labour from its supply chain.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company discloses that it respects and strengthens the rights of all its workers, including contract, temporary, casual and migrant workers of all genders. However, it could identify vulnerable groups in relation to health and safety risks.

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 the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Furthermore, it has a publicly available policy statement setting out its approach on personal political engagement. However, it could also disclose a publicly available policy statement setting out its lobbying engagement approach. Similarly, the company states that it does not make political contributions in a statement report but does not formalise this commitment in a public policy document. Moreover, the company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities and could require third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. Furthermore, while the company states that it pays minimum wage to its employees, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. It could also disclose how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Similarly, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it has an opportunity to add a requirement for them to pay a living wage, and disclose how it supports the payment.
Moreover, although the company is committed to diversity, it has an opportunity to explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could disclose time-bound targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment that it has at least 30% women on the board. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
While the company conducts a materiality assessment to identify the main risks to the business and identifying human rights broadly as a risk, it could describe the risk identification process. It also has an opportunity to describe the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, covering its supply chain. Furthermore, the company could describe its process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues and the results of its human rights risk assessment. Additionally, the company could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.