Kroger

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

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 reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a target to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 30% by 2030, using 2018 as the baseline. Moreover, it reports progress towards these targets.

Animal welfare
The company discloses evidence of conducting animal welfare third-party certifications or third-party audits on its suppliers. Furthermore, it set a target to ensure that 70% of the eggs used come from cage-free farms by the year 2030 and reports related progress against this goal.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is committed to reducing plastic use and transitioning towards sustainable packaging and has implemented policies and engaged in activities that support these efforts. Additionally, the company provides quantitative data on its progress in reducing plastic use.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses that it introduced the OptUP nutrition rating system, utilizing a scale from 1 to 100, and integrated OptUP into its digital shopping platform. It has an opportunity to adopt an interpretive government-endorsed front-of-pack labelling system.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
Regarding bribery and corruption, the company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Further, it has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.
Concerning lobbying and income tax payments, the company discloses its lobbying expenditures and income tax payments for all its tax jurisdictions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by race or ethnicity and covered by collective bargaining agreements. Further, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and has 45.45% 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 and indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers. Furthermore, the company describes the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and its supply chain. It also describes its process for assessing its human rights risks and discloses what it considers to be its salient human rights issues.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability; however, it has an opportunity to link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Furthermore, while it states that the board of directors has expertise in sustainability, 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 by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities.

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.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to establish a time-bound target to reduce scope 3 emissions and report progress against it. Additionally, it can align its Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Animal welfare
While the company has a target that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain, it has an opportunity to make it applicable to all species, geographies and products.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to implement commercial activities to improve the affordability of nutritious foods, especially for vulnerable groups. Additionally, setting targets to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods for these groups through its commercial activities is also an opportunity for the company.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate how it is improving the nutritional quality of its products and to set targets to increase the share of more nutritious products in its portfolio.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of products/menus for which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to provide evidence of marketing activities to promote healthier and more nutritious food options (in accordance with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines). Additionally, the company can disclose a responsible marketing policy specifically tailored to children that is aligned with international codes and guidelines and applicable across all media channels.

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. Also, it could translate its expectations for suppliers on the prohibition of child labour into policy requirements.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions. Also, it could adopt procurement practices and develop supply chain relationships that improve farmers’ income resilience.

Forced labour
The company could disclose commitments to not paying recruitment fees or any related costs in order to obtain a job, as well as not retaining workers’ personal documents or limiting their freedom of movement for its operations. Additionally, it could translate its expectations for suppliers regarding the prohibition of retaining workers’ personal documents, restricting workers’ freedom of movement and paying recruitment fees into policy requirements.
Currently, the company has disclosed a system for monitoring its suppliers to prevent the imposition of recruitment fees, retention of personal documents, or restriction of workers’ freedom of movement. However, there is room for improvement in terms of disclosing the specific methods they use to support their suppliers in preventing and addressing forced labour issues.

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
Concerning bribery and corruption, the company could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations.
In terms of lobbying, while the company has a publicly available policy statement setting out its approach on political contributions, it has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach. Further, the company states that it may make political contributions. However, it could disclose whether these are made only by exception, and the criteria for making them. Lastly, the company could disclose that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company has a health and safety policy, it could use stronger language to show a commitment to health and safety and disclose a policy statement expecting its suppliers to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers.

Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage and how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Further, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it could add a requirement to pay a living wage, and disclose how it supports the payment.

In terms of gender equality and women’s empowerment, the company has an opportunity to disclose a public commitment and time-bound targets. Also, it could 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 expects its suppliers to respect specific workers’ rights but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. Furthermore, it could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.