Kirin

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, it discloses the impacts of these engagement activities on its sustainability strategy.

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. Furthermore, it has group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain and reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company is committed to reducing its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2030, relative to 2019 levels. Furthermore, it is actively working to decrease its scope 3 emissions, with a target of achieving a 30% reduction in scope 3 GHG emissions by 2030, compared to 2019 levels. The company also shows leadership by aligning all its GHG emissions reduction targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory and by regularly reporting progress against these targets.

Food loss and waste
Between 2021 and 2022, there was a quantitative decrease in the amount of FLW generated by Kirin. The company is committed to disclosing its FLW reduction targets and regularly reporting on its progress towards these targets. Kirin’s FLW reduction targets are in line with SDG 12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction in FLW by 2030. Additionally, the company actively collaborates with its value chain partners to prevent the generation of FLW.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company discloses efforts to reduce single-use plastic and use recycled plastic content in its bottles.

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

Water withdrawal
The company showcases its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations, and it also reports the amount of water withdrawn in water-stressed areas.

Food safety
The company discloses that 96 % of its production sites are certified under a GFSI-recognized food safety management system and it has a target to certify all of its plants by 2024.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company showcases its commitment to improving farmer resilience by implementing sustainable procurement practices. It supports 94 Sri Lankan tea farms in obtaining the Rainforest Alliance certification and aims to extend this support to 10,000 small-scale Sri Lankan tea farms by 2025 and expand its efforts to assist coffee farmers in Vietnam. In addition, it has introduced new year-round products made from certified tea leaves. To highlight the positive impact of these initiatives, the company presents a graph demonstrating how both profit per kilogram and workers’ salaries have increased as a result of their support for certification.

Forced labour
The company prohibits suppliers from using recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, retaining workers’ personal documents or restricting workers’ freedom of movement.

Act ethically
The company has a global tax strategy that it discloses to the public. It also clarifies that the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is accountable for establishing and maintaining the company’s tax corporate governance, tax risk management, and material tax risk. Additionally, the company ensures that its contracts with direct business relationships contain anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses.

Provide and promote decent work
The company’s publicly available policy statement reinforces its commitment to worker health and safety. It has disclosed that 55% of its total direct operations workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Furthermore, it has a publicly available policy statement that expects its business relationships to commit to the health and safety of their workers. It advocates for sustainable procurement in accordance with its sustainable supplier code. Also, it states that internal and external auditors audit how the supplier is complying with this code by periodically checking the status of compliance with the code with suppliers through questionnaires and supplier evaluations.

In terms of gender equality, the company discloses the percentage of women in its total direct operations workforce across employee categories. As a signatory of the WEP (Women’s Empowerment Principles), the company publicly pledges to support gender equality and women’s empowerment. Additionally, the company sets a goal to increase the representation of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2030.

Respect human rights
The company publicly commits to respecting ILO core labor rights in its policy statement. It also expects its suppliers to adhere to these rights as well. To ensure it identifies any human rights risks and impacts, the company conducts human rights due diligence in accordance with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Additionally, the company performs human rights impact assessments by conducting specific assessments in its supply chains. For example, it conducted a coffee supply chain assessment in Laos and a soybean supply chain assessment in China. It reports the specific procedures in place for the human rights impact assessment of its China soybean supply chain in 2022.

The company discloses its salient human rights issues, such as working hours, compensation, occupational health and safety, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.

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 nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Furthermore, while it states that the board of directors has expertise in ESG, it 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 report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on sustainability-related issues, and whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to optimise the use of fertilizers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against the targets.

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
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 the entirety of its operations and to report progress against the target. While the company states that it plans to work with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal, it has an opportunity to report and provide evidence of its engagement processes.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses that it is expanding its low-sugar offerings. However, it has an opportunity to share data on its efforts to reduce sugar and calories across its portfolio.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to make nutritional information more visible to consumers through the adoption of front-of-pack labels and/or any other consumer-facing nutrition label.

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

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to disclose a responsible marketing policy that covers all media channels, aimed at reducing children exposure to alcohol marketing and limiting the appeal of alcohol marketing.

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
For its operations, the company has an opportunity to prohibit the use of recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Furthermore, it could indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to set a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it sources. Also, it could disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or suppliers that are paid a living wage.

Act ethically
While the company prohibits bribery and corruption, it has an opportunity to formalise this commitment in a public policy document. Additionally, it could also outline the process it uses to identify specific bribery and corruption risks and their impact on different locations or activities within its own operations.

Currently, the company has a mechanism in place for stakeholders to report bribery and corruption concerns. However, it is unclear whether this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders, and whether complainants have the option to remain anonymous or identify themselves.

Another area for improvement is the company’s approach to lobbying and political engagement. Although the company states that political contributions require prior approval in line with internal rules, it could go further by specifying whether such contributions are only made in exceptional cases and describe the criteria for making them.

Provide and promote decent work
The company currently states that it pays its employees minimum wage, but it can take steps to commit to paying a living wage by establishing a specific time frame. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to be transparent about how it determines what constitutes a living wage in the areas where it operates. While the company has already set certain expectations regarding the wages paid by its suppliers, it can further enhance its practices by requiring them to pay a living wage. It should also disclose the measures it takes to support suppliers in meeting this requirement.

Regarding the company’s board of directors, the current report indicates that out of a total of 17 members, only 4 are female, resulting in a ratio of 23.5%. To promote gender diversity, the company could disclose its commitment to having at least 30% women representation on the board. Furthermore, the company has the opportunity to provide information on the ratio of basic salary and overall compensation between women and men in its workforce.

Respect human rights
The company states that it performs human rights risk assessments and has processes in place to prevent, mitigate, or address its significant human rights concerns. However, it should provide more comprehensive details about the assessment process and also disclose how this system applies to its supply chain.