International Flavors & Fragrances

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.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and states the 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 has set a target to reduce both its absolute direct and indirect scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which fall under its operational control, by 50% below 2021 levels by 2030. Additionally, the company has established an approved science-based target (SBTi) specifically for its legacy IFF (influential financial factor) to reduce its absolute scope 1 emissions and market-based scope 2 emissions by 30% below 2015 levels by 2025.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains, particularly by working through RSPO certification for 30% of its total production.

Water withdrawal
The company reports its water withdrawal for its own operations in water-stressed areas. Additionally, the company actively engages with suppliers to minimize their water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses its commitment to innovation in addressing the reduction of fat, sugar, and salt. In addition to this, it offers an ingredient solution specifically designed to lower sugar content in chocolate and cookies.

Child labour
The company discloses an age verification system for the workers recruited for its operation and supply chain. Furthermore, it requires suppliers to prohibit child labour.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company supports guar farmers in India to ensure their income resiliency by guaranteeing them a fair price and providing information on the quota of raw materials the suppliers will purchase. Further, its Vetiver Forward initiative supports six cooperatives within its supply chain. This includes improving their access to high-value markets, technical services, business training, seed banks, and inputs to diversify their income. Furthermore, it extends its support to the farmers’ association of its vanilla suppliers. Its efforts are focused on maintaining the quality of the products and ensuring that they remain Fair for Life certified.

Land rights
The company has a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights.

Act ethically
The company publicly commits to protecting personal data and discloses its global tax strategy. It also has a policy in place that prohibits bribery and corruption. To further reinforce this commitment, the company includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Furthermore, the company has implemented a grievance mechanism, allowing stakeholders to voice their concerns and complaints relating to bribery and corruption. Moreover, the company explicitly states that it does not make any political contributions.

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. It extends this commitment to its business relationships and explains how it monitors their health and safety performance. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and elaborates on its efforts to support the practices of its business relationships regarding freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Furthermore, the company discloses the percentage of its workforce in each employee category by age group, gender, and race or ethnicity. Moreover, it publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and reveals a target to increase female representation by 50% at all organizational levels, including the Board of Directors, by 2030.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain. Furthermore, the company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company’s activities.

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
While the company states it has an internal process, it has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Furthermore, it could report (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including ecosystem conversion, social inclusion, climate and water, 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, 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 disclose reductions in scope 1 and 2 and scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and set time-bound targets aligned with the 1.5-degree pathway.

Ecosystem conversion
While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it has an opportunity to cover 100% of its high-risk commodities.

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 chance to provide quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal within its own operations. Although the company already discloses targets for reducing water consumption, absolute water use, and water intensity, it could also disclose a target for reducing water withdrawal and report on its progress towards achieving it.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose the outcomes of its nutrition-sensitive activities. This includes providing data that demonstrates how its initiatives are contributing to addressing malnutrition and increasing the availability of nutritious foods.

Food safety
The company has a chance to showcase that all of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme or another widely recognized industry-specific certification. Additionally, it can disclose the percentage of food suppliers that are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

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 how it is building the capacity of its suppliers 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 regions or commodities.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain such as a prohibition to pay recruitment fees, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Land rights
The company could require 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 an opportunity to provide more detail about its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities within its own operations. Furthermore, although the company states that all political activities on behalf of the company must receive prior clearance from Ethics and Compliance or Legal group, it could also outline its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement. Moreover, while the company discloses its political contributions, it could also disclose its expenditures related to lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it pays a fair and equitable wage to its employees, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. Additionally, it could clarify how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Relatedly, while the company has set expectations for the wages paid by its suppliers, it should also require them to pay a living wage and disclose its support for such payments. Furthermore, to enhance transparency, the company should report information, including the ratio of basic salary and remuneration between women and men.

Respect human rights
While the company discloses that it conducts a materiality assessment to identify the main risks to the business and implements a review and screening of its global direct spend suppliers, it should provide more details about its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts within its own operations and supply chain. Additionally, the company should outline its method for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues. Furthermore, it should disclose a global system for addressing, preventing, or mitigating its salient human rights issues.