Grupo Nutresa

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

Plastic use and packaging waste
Grupo Nutresa has set the goal of having in place 100% recyclable, reusable or compostable packaging materials by 2030. In addition, the company participates in several alliances on packaging materials recovery such as Vision 3030 of the National Business Association of Colombia and Chile’s GRANSIC de AB. Furthermore, Grupo Nutresa discloses a reduction of 187 tons of packaging materials under the Design to-Value methodology; a 2.8% reduction in the use of packaging materials per ton produced from 2010 to 2020; and the collection of 2.7 tons of plastic packaging materials through the Nutresa Retoma (Retake) Programme.

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
Grupo Nutresa discloses its materiality analysis process and matrix as well as a Sustainability Strategy 2030, with set targets covering the majority of its most relevant topics. The company also has targets across all food and beverage dimensions. To strengthen its performance, Grupo Nutresa has an opportunity to define targets for all its material topics.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
Grupo Nutresa has a Strategic Planning and Sustainability Committee composed of members of its board of directors. Its management team also includes a vice-president of sustainable development. The company can improve its performance by disclosing further information on its decision-making processes and oversight responsibilities, as well as linking sustainability objectives and targets to roles and remuneration.

Stakeholder engagement
Grupo Nutresa is aligned with AA1000 international standard, which requires Grupo Nutresa to apply the essential principles of inclusiveness, materiality, impact and response capacity in all the relations with its stakeholders. However, the company is at the first stages of mapping, where it describes the identification of issues raised during the engagement. Therefore, Grupo Nutresa can improve by disclosing an engagement process that covers topics under nutrition, environment and social inclusion.

Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions
Grupo Nutresa reports on various scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in Colombia, Mexico, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru and Costa Rica. Furthermore, as part of its 2030 strategy, Grupo Nutresa aims to achieve a reduction of 40% scope 1 and 2 emissions. To improve its performance, Grupo Nutresa should report globally on its progress.

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.

Water use
While the company reports on water consumption, it does not demonstrate quantitative reductions in water withdrawals across its operations.

Food loss and waste
Grupo Nutresa has a 2030 target to reduce food loss by 30% and food waste by 50%. To improve in this area, the company has an opportunity to report on its reduction of food loss and waste across its operations.

Animal welfare
While the company has a commitment on animal welfare that addresses animal welfare issues in relation to responsible sourcing, it does not apply to all key species, geographies or products that are relevant to the company.

Availability of healthy foods
Grupo Nutresa discloses quantitative evidence of its reformulation activities to reduce salt, sugar and fat. In 2020, the company achieved its target for multiplying by 2.5 the number of product portfolios that meet the company’s nutritional criteria. However, Grupo Nutresa can strengthen its performance by increasing transparency around its definition of healthy products and disclosing a target to increase the percentage of food products that meet this definition.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
While the company has a commitment to address food insecurity by improving the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods, it has an opportunity to implement commercial activities designed to make healthy foods more accessible and affordable for vulnerable groups.

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.

Food safety
While the company discloses evidence that some sites of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognised food safety scheme, it does not demonstrate that all its own operations are certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

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 policy requiring its suppliers to have an age-verification system in place.

Forced labour
The company does not disclose a commitment to prohibit forced labour in its supply chain.

Living wage
The company does not disclose that it pays its workers a living wage nor 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 and fisher productivity and resilience
Grupo Nutresa discloses how it promotes communities’ growth and development. For instance, the company has trained 1,476 small farmers in socio-entrepreneurial matters and carried out capability development programmes with more than 20,000 cocoa, sesame, cashew and coffee farming families, farmers and technicians. Grupo Nutresa has an opportunity to disclosing the impact of these activities.

While Grupo Nutresa commits to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights, it does not provide a statement of policy that expects its supply chain partners to commit to respecting the right to collective bargaining. Additionally, the company does not disclose a publicly available commitment on how it identifies and takes action to address its human rights salient risks in its own operations and its supply chain nor its stakeholder engagement when human rights are at stake. To conclude, although Grupo Nutresa has a grievance mechanism, it does not indicate that the mechanism is anonymous.

Although Grupo Nutresa publicly commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and places the same expectations on its supply chain partners, it does not disclose quantitative information on health and safety for its workers, such as injury rates and occupational disease rates, nor how it monitors the health and safety performance of its supply chain partners. Additionally, no commitments on decent work topics were found, including living wage, gender equality and women’s empowerment, collective bargaining and workforce diversity.

Regarding responsible tax, Grupo Nutresa lacks disclosure on the amount of corporate income tax paid for each tax jurisdiction where the company is a resident for tax purposes. Neither does it publicly prohibit bribery and corruption nor take steps to identify and address bribery and corruption risks and incidents. No relevant commitments and disclosure on other key ethical business topics – including personal data protection and lobbying and political engagement – were found in the public domain.