Groupe Limagrain

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
Groupe Limagrain reports that it conducted a risk assessment to develop its sustainability strategy. While the company has targets covering topics in the benchmark’s three dimensions of environment, nutrition and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to disclose its sustainable development strategy and how it identifies and prioritises the topics where it has the most impact.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company states that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department reports to a member of the Group Executive Board. While it discloses its decision-making process and oversight responsibilities, it lacks transparency on its executive-level and highest governance body’s remuneration policy regarding sustainability. There is an opportunity for Groupe Limagrain to link its reward system to sustainability performance across all environment, nutrition and social inclusion topics.

Stakeholder engagement
While Groupe Limagrain states that discussion with its stakeholders is a key component of its CSR programme, and provides some examples of stakeholder engagement, it does not disclose a list of its identified stakeholders or the issues raised with them. Furthermore, it does not provide evidence of the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement. Therefore, the company does not demonstrate that it undertakes meaningful stakeholder engagement and should improve its disclosure on the topic.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
While Groupe Limagrain discloses a target to achieve a 10% reduction in energy consumption by 2022 from a 2015-2016 baseline, it does not disclose quantitative evidence to demonstrate that it is reducing its scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions. Neither does it demonstrate that it is reducing its scope 3 emissions.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
While the company discloses qualitative evidence relevant for this indicator through its participation in the work of gene banks and commercial activities, it has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by setting targets to increase the percentage of production from sustainable practices that improve soil health and agrobiodiversity and reporting progress against the targets.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
While the company discloses qualitative evidence relevant for this indicator through its N-FLEX rapeseed, it has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by setting targets to increase the percentage of production from sustainable practices that optimise use of fertilisers and pesticides and reporting progress against the targets.

Water use
While the company has set a target to reduce its tap water consumption by 5% by 2022 across its own operations, it is yet to report progress against the target. There is room for Groupe Limagrain to enhance its reporting on this topic. The company could also establish a more ambitious target on water consumption and provide information on quantitative reductions.

Availability of healthy foods
Groupe Limagrain demonstrates that it is reducing the levels of fat and salt in its pastry and bakery products under the Jacquet, Brossard and Milcamps brands, providing quantitative evidence. There is an opportunity for the company to improve its performance by disclosing a target for the percentage of healthy food products as part of its entire portfolio and by being transparent about its definition of healthy.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
The company reports on activities addressing global food security by improving access to seeds, notably small-scale farmer projects in Ethiopia. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose commitments and activities for its food processing operations with regard to improving the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods, particularly for vulnerable groups.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company states that the Nutri-Score system is now included on the packaging of all Jacquet, Brossard and Milcamps brands products. However, it is unclear if this extends to all the company’s products and operations. There is an opportunity for the company to improve its disclosure on clear and transparent labelling by detailing the percentage of products for which labelling commitments have been rolled out.

Responsible marketing
While the company has a commitment to market its products responsibly, particularly to children, it has an opportunity to disclose evidence of activities promoting healthy foods.

Child labour
While the company commits to prohibiting child labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard, it has an opportunity to disclose a coordinated and consistent monitoring system for its own operations. It could also provide an analysis of trends, demonstrating progress on child labour.

Forced labour
While the company commits to prohibiting forced labour in its own operations and supply chain, it has an opportunity to disclose a requirement that prohibits its suppliers from retaining workers’ personal documents and restricting workers’ freedom of movement.

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.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company does not specifically recognise the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers.

Farmer productivity and resilience
Groupe Limagrain reports that it contributes to the productivity of its cooperative partner farms, by providing products or services to help sustainable performance. It further states that it supports the work of non-profit Fair Planet in Ethiopia and reports that, thanks to its involvement, more than 90% of small-scale growers in the region now use quality seeds. It adds that tomato yields have multiplied by four and hot peppers by eight as a result. Furthermore, the company states that the programme expects to reach 50,000 Ethiopian small-scale growers in 2020. However, there is an opportunity for Groupe Limagrain to improve its disclosure and report on the impact of all its activities supporting the resilience, productivity and access to markets for farmers.

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.

While Groupe Limagrain has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its supply chain partners to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights and is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact, it can improve by including a commitment for its own operations in its corporate policies. Moreover, the company does not disclose a sufficient commitment on all other topics related to respect for human rights.

While Groupe Limagrain commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and workforce diversity, the company can improve its performance by increasing its disclosure on these topics. Moreover, the company can strengthen its gender equality ambitions by expanding the scope of its commitments to include all operations. Lastly, Groupe Limagrain does not disclose a sufficient commitment towards working hours fundamentals in its operations, nor does it report on key metrics regarding living wages and collective bargaining.

Groupe Limagrain publicly commits to protecting personal data and has a privacy statement on the use of personal data. There is room for the company to strengthen its policies on bribery and corruption by including anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with supply chain partners. Groupe Limagrain can also improve on lobbying and political engagement by providing a publicly available policy statement setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach. Moreover, the company discloses no information on tax, and no publicly available tax strategy was found.