Kernel

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 the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups.

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 discloses quantitative reductions for its scope 3 emissions from 1,005.8 thousand tCO2 in 2021 to 773.8 thousand tCO2 in 2022.

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

Water withdrawal
The company actively shows its commitment to reducing water withdrawal through its own operations. Additionally, the company provides reports that disclose the amount of water withdrawn specifically in water-stressed areas.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that 100% of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognised food safety scheme.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company discloses that it is supporting farmers in Ukraine through strategic acquisitions and by fostering loyal relations with local farmers. Through its Open Agribusiness project, it aims to help farmers improve their technological and business management practices to lower production costs, maximize income, and enhance their ability to handle risks and market volatilities. In exchange for this support, the farmers commit to supplying a minimum of 80% of their yields to Kernel.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Also, it discloses a public commitment to protect personal data.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group and covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Concerning health and safety, it has a publicly available statement committing to respecting the health and safety of workers in its operations and supply chain and discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships.

Lastly, for gender equality, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and has 37.5% women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights in its operations and supply chain. Furthermore, it indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Furthermore, it could 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 clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it can 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 during its stakeholder engagement activities and the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement, beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, it could report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company aims to establish emission reduction targets in accordance with SBTi guidance. It also intends to implement specific measures to attain these targets over the mid- and long-term. However, there is no available evidence indicating that the company currently has targets for reducing its scope 1 and 2 emissions. The company has an opportunity to provide updates on its progress towards these scope 1 and 2 targets. It should also consider aligning these targets with a trajectory of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. Furthermore, there is an opportunity for the company to decrease its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, it has the chance to disclose a time-bound target for reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Similar to scope 1 and 2, reporting on progress against these scope 3 targets and aligning them with a 1.5-degree trajectory would be beneficial.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
While the company discloses that it reduced the percentage of fertiliser use, it has an opportunity to disclose a target to optimise the use of fertilisers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices and report progress against them.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report the progress made towards achieving these target(s). Moreover, it should consider aligning its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims to achieve a 50% reduction in FLW by 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and report progress against it.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and reports progress against the target. It also has an opportunity to engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and activities to address malnutrition and food insecurity.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of workforce nutrition programmes.

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. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place.

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.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company has an opportunity to recognise and assess the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups.

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 a process for identifying bribery and corruption but could disclose details of this process. Furthermore, while it has a mechanism to raise concerns, it could clearly disclose if this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns and complaints without fear of reprisals.

Concerning lobbying and political engagement, the company has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its approach and specify that it does not make political contributions although it states that it prohibits any donations or provision of material valuables to political candidates, political parties, or party officials. Furthermore, it could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities and its requirement for third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
Concerning a living wage, while the company states that it pays competitive wage to its employees, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target and disclose how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Additionally, while the company expects its suppliers to pay a minimum living wage, it has an opportunity to describe if a minimum living wage is enough to maintain a decent standard of living for employees of its business relationships and their family and how it works to support the payment.

In terms of gender equality and women’s empowerment, the company has an opportunity to disclose a public commitment along with time-bound targets. It could further disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, by significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to describe the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, covering its own operations and its supply chain although it conducts supply chain due diligence in general. Furthermore, it could disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment and its process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Lastly, the company has an opportunity to disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.