Ingredion

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company provides evidence of linking performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company is committed to reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. It has set a time-bound target to achieve this reduction. Additionally, the company regularly reports the progress it has made in relation to these scope 1 and 2 targets. Furthermore, the company has also established a time-bound target for reducing its scope 3 emissions.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

Water withdrawal
The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses it is developing nature-based, low-calorie ingredients solutions.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company demonstrates a commitment to data protection with a public statement and a privacy policy. It also upholds its commitment to ethical conduct with a clear anti-bribery and corruption policy. Additionally, the company provides stakeholders with a grievance mechanism for addressing concerns related to bribery and corruption. Furthermore, it outlines its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a dedicated policy statement, ensuring transparency in this area.

Provide and promote decent work
The company demonstrates its commitment to worker health and safety through public policy statements, including an expectation for business relationships to do the same. It also shares information about collective bargaining agreements at 45% of its manufacturing plants. Furthermore, the company provides insights into its workforce demographics, including age, gender, and race or ethnicity, fostering transparency and inclusivity. Lastly, it discloses the composition of its board, with 4 out of 12 members being female, accounting for a 33% representation of women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company strongly upholds human rights and labor rights, with publicly available policy statements that affirm its commitment. It further enhances transparency by providing accessible reporting channels, including a website and toll-free numbers by country, where individuals can raise grievances. The company’s commitment to confidentiality is evident, offering complainants the option to remain anonymous or identify themselves when making reports.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company 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 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 stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company states that it has a materiality assessment. However, it has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how external stakeholders are involved in the process. Furthermore, while the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, biodiversity and soil health, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Additionally, while the company reports qualitative progress against all its targets, it has an opportunity to disclose quantitative information regarding its current status.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has disclosed that its science-based target is in line with a 2°C scenario, as confirmed by the SBTi. Additionally, it has conducted a high-level assessment to evaluate the feasibility of transitioning to a 1.5°C world and explore potential solutions for this transition. However, there is currently no evidence indicating that the company’s scope 1 and 2 targets are aligned with the 1.5°C trajectory.

Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for the company to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the company has the opportunity to provide progress reports on its scope 3 targets. By doing so, it has the potential to align its scope 3 emissions targets with the trajectory of a 1.5-degree scenario.

Plastic use and packaging waste
While the company describes its activities to reduce plastic use and transition towards sustainable packaging, it has an opportunity to disclose the associated quantitative data.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
While the company discloses its commitment to have 100,000 acres of farmland under regenerative practices by 2030, it is not made clear what these will entail and what their effect on soil health will be. It has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health and report progress against it.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. Although the company already discloses targets for reducing water consumption, absolute water use, and water intensity, there is an additional opportunity to disclose a target for reducing water withdrawal across its own operations and track progress towards it. Another opportunity for the company is to engage with its suppliers in order to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose the outcomes of its nutrition-sensitive activities and provide data demonstrating how its initiatives are contributing to addressing malnutrition.

Food safety
While the company discloses that 98% of its own operations are certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme, it has an opportunity to extend the certifications to 100% of its own operations. Additionally, it can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to provide examples of its remediation programs when cases of child labour are discovered within its operations. Although it places expectations on suppliers on child labour, it has an opportunity to explicitly mention in the policy that these are requirements and to include measures to verify the age of recruited workers. Moreover, it conducts suppliers’ assessments on child labour issues but could describe how it collaborates with its supply chain to eliminate child labour.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to translate its expectations for suppliers regarding the prohibition of retaining workers’ personal documents, restriction of workers’ freedom of movement and paying recruitment fees into policy requirements and extend the latter to its own operations. Although it conducts assessments on key suppliers on forced labour issues, it has an opportunity to disclose how it builds suppliers’ capacity to prevent and address forced labour impacts.

Land rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights. Furthermore, it could describe a process at its operations and supply chain level to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Act ethically
The company has the option to outline its procedures for identifying bribery and corruption risks and their impacts in specific locations or activities involving its own operations. Furthermore, the company can choose to incorporate anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses into its contracts with business relationships.

In addition, the company has the opportunity to publicly disclose a policy statement stating that it does not make political contributions. It could also reveal its spending on lobbying activities and demonstrate its requirement for third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company can enhance its transparency by providing details on how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. Additionally, it has an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to fair wages by setting a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage and explaining the methodology used to determine living wages in the regions of its operation. Furthermore, the company could strengthen its stance on gender equality and women’s empowerment by publicly committing to these principles and revealing the gender-based salary ratios within its workforce across significant locations.

Respect human rights
The company could strengthen its commitment by referencing all the ILO fundamental rights at work in addition to specific workers’ rights for its suppliers. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to provide comprehensive insights into its approach to identifying human rights risks and impacts, both within its own operations and across its supply chain. This could involve detailing its process for conducting human rights risk assessments, identifying salient issues, and openly disclosing the results. Additionally, the company could further enhance its transparency by revealing its global system for addressing and preventing salient human rights issues.