Itochu

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
Itochu discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics, and it discloses progress against most of its relevant sustainability topics across environmental and social issues. It has an opportunity to strengthen its disclosure in the nutrition measurement area.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
Itochu discloses the role and responsibilities of its sustainability department, which include reporting regularly to the board of directors. However, no evidence was found regarding the inclusion of sustainability metrics in the remuneration policy of its highest governance body.

Stakeholder engagement
While Itochu provides an overview of its stakeholder engagement, including the main methods of dialogue, it does not provide an overview of the issues raised via these activities.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
Itochu has set a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions target for 2050 as well as an interim target to achieve 40% reduction from 2018 levels by 2030. However, the company is yet to disclose progress against the targets.

Protection of terrestrial natural ecosystems
Itochu provides evidence of its commitment to achieve deforestation and conversion-free (DCF) supply chains through its targets to procure sustainable palm oil and its sustainable sourcing programme for cocoa and coffee. However, the company can strengthen its commitment by setting targets for all of its high-risk commodities and reporting progress against them.

Water use
While the company has set water-reduction targets for its headquarters and assessed water stress across its manufacturing sites, it can improve by expanding the scope of its targets to cover all of its operations, assessing water stress across its supply chain and engaging with suppliers to reduce their water consumption.

Food loss and waste
In compliance with the Japanese Food Recycling Law, the company reports on the percentage of food recycled through processes such as feed conversion, against its target reference rate. The company has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by engaging with partners to reduce food waste across its value chain.

Plastic use and packaging waste
Itochu provides evidence of a project to reduce its environmental impact by introducing side shrink wrap packaging and discloses a quantitative reduction in plastic raw materials used. The company can strengthen its commitment by setting targets to reduce plastic use and transition to sustainable packaging across its operations as well as engaging with partners to reduce packaging waste across its value chain.

Availability of healthy foods
Itochu provides qualitative evidence of improving the nutritional quality of its products through activities carried out by its retail subsidiary FamilyMart. The company can strengthen its commitment by reporting quantitative evidence of the reduction of salt, sugar and fat and setting targets to increase the percentage of such healthy products in its portfolio.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
Itochu provides evidence of strategic commercial activities designed to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods. These include provision of medical foods and nutritious products for elderly populations through its subsidiary FamilyMart. The company has an opportunity to further strengthen its commitment by setting targets to improve the accessibility and affordability of healthy foods through its commercial activities.

Clear and transparent labelling
While the company complies with national regulations regarding labelling and commits to making nutritional information available for all consumers, it has an opportunity to make nutritional information more visible to consumers through the adoption of front-of-pack labels or any other consumer-facing nutrition labelling schemes.

Responsible marketing
While Itochu provides evidence of responsible marketing initiatives, no evidence was found regarding a responsible marketing commitment or policy around food aligned with international codes and guidelines such as the International Chamber of Commerce’s Advertising and Marketing Communications Code across all media channels.

Workforce nutrition
Itochu demonstrates that it is committed to workforce nutrition through initiatives such as nutrition education and provision of healthy food at work. The company has an opportunity to further strengthen its commitment by promoting nutrition-focused health checks and disclosing quantitative evidence of the percentage of food offerings with healthy options.

Food safety
Itochu discloses compliance with international frameworks on food safety for its direct subsidiaries and discloses the process for food safety audit procedures for its suppliers. The company has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by disclosing the percentages of its own operations and suppliers that are certified to a food safety certification programme recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative or other widely recognised certification.

Child labour
While the company commits to prohibiting child labour in its supply chain, it has an opportunity to have a similar commitment for its own operations and disclose a policy requiring its suppliers to have an age-verification system in place.

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
While Itochu expects its suppliers to aim to exceed living wages, it does not provide its definition of what constitutes a living wage. Moreover, it is yet to disclose a time-bound target for paying a living wage across all its operations and supply chain.

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

Farmer and fisher productivity and resilience
Itochu supports farmer productivity and resilience through an initiative to develop new producing areas to expand employment and improve the living environment through the growth of local industries in Sierra Leone. While the company states it will promote expansion of pineapple plantations, and employ workers locally to operate the plantations, no evidence was found regarding the impact of these support activities.

Land rights
While Itochu is committed to respecting community and social considerations which include free, prior and informed consent, it can further strengthen its commitment by requiring its suppliers to recognise and respect legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land.

Itochu is committed to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights. The company displays a human rights due diligence process, which includes the identification of salient human rights risks in its operations and supply chain, but it can improve its disclosure regarding assessing and taking action on human rights risks. As part of this process, the company provides grievance mechanisms that are accessible to employees. However, it has no grievance mechanisms that are accessible to external individuals and communities.

Itochu commits to respecting the health and safety of its workers and discloses the same expectations for its supply chain partners. The company can improve its score by disclosing quantitative information on the health and safety of its workers as well as how its monitors the health and safety performance of its supply chain partners. While the company discloses limited information on workforce diversity, no sufficient evidence of commitments or disclosure was found regarding living wages, working hours, collective bargaining, gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Itochu publicly commits to protecting personal data and has a privacy statement on the use of personal data. There is room for Itochu to improve its disclosure on income tax payments on a country-by-country basis and on its bribery and corruption grievance mechanism. It can also strengthen its policies on lobbying and political engagement.