Marubeni Corporation

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member. However, by making it clear that this list of trade associations is comprehensive and covers all regions of its operations, it can enhance its due diligence efforts concerning the trade associations it supports.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, it discloses the specific outcomes from these engagement activities.

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
Marubeni Corporation has set clear, time-bound targets to reduce its emissions in scope 1, scope 2, and scope 3, showcasing its strong commitment to environmental sustainability and comprehensive carbon footprint reduction.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitment and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company demonstrates a strong commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture by providing qualitative evidence that adheres to environmental sourcing criteria. This commitment ensures responsible practices and sourcing throughout its operations.

Water withdrawal
The company reports the quantity of water it withdraws for its operations in water-stressed regions, demonstrating its commitment to responsible water management.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

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 has a publicly available policy statement that explicitly prohibits bribery and corruption. Additionally, it carries out due diligence on business partners engaged in government-related global transactions to identify any potential risks of bribery and corruption. This includes conducting risk analyses to thoroughly assess the situation. As part of its anti-corruption due diligence, various departments within the company conduct both preliminary reviews and audits. Moreover, the company clearly outlines its systematic process for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption risks in specific locations and activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to prioritizing the health and safety of its workers. Additionally, the company expects its business relationships to also prioritize the health and safety of their workers, as stated in their publicly available policy statement. The company provides transparency by disclosing the methods it uses to monitor the health and safety performance of its business relationships.

Furthermore, the company discloses the percentage of women in each employee category within its direct operations workforce. The company publicly demonstrates its commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It has set four specific targets to achieve, including increasing the proportion of women in all career-track positions to at least 15% and the proportion of women in all management positions to at least 10% by the end of March 2026.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement that commits it to respecting human rights, as well as the ILO core labour rights. This policy also extends to suppliers, expecting them to respect the same rights. To ensure adherence to these commitments, the company outlines its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its own operations. This process includes sustainability surveys conducted with the assistance of external experts, as well as the adoption of best practices. Additionally, the company engages with external stakeholders to assess the risk of potential human rights violations. Furthermore, the company also describes its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts within its supply chain.

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.

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

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, they can report their progress against these targets. Furthermore, the company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions targets can be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Moreover, the company has the opportunity to decrease its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, they can report their progress against these scope 3 targets and align these targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Animal welfare
The company has an opportunity to set animal welfare targets applicable to all species, geographies and products.

Antibiotic use and growth promoting substances
While the company discloses that it provides beef raised without the use of growth hormones and antibiotics, it has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the (prophylactic) use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances. It could also disclose targets to phase out their use across all species, geographies and products, 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 progress consistently. Additionally, the company can align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

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.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, as well as report progress against this target.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
While the company provides evidence of a commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture, there is an opportunity to provide quantitative evidence showing an increase of its sustainable fishing and aquaculture. Specifically, the company should consider disclosing targets for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture encompassing its entire portfolio, and regularly report on the progress made towards achieving these targets.

Water withdrawal
The company has the opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its operations. Additionally, it can disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal and report progress against this target. Furthermore, the company has the chance to engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

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.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to food safety and demonstrate that its operations and supply chain adhere to food safety standards.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of the implementation of workforce nutrition programmes within this benchmark time scope (at least from 2021).

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has set up initiatives to improve the sustainability of the farms but it has an opportunity to demonstrate how it improves farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships. Also, it could demonstrate how it identifies living income benchmarks and assesses 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 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.

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
The company has an opportunity to enhance its contracts with business relationships by including anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses. Additionally, it could establish a confidential and anonymous mechanism accessible to all stakeholders, enabling them to raise concerns and complaints related to bribery and corruption without fear of reprisals.

Furthermore, the company can develop a policy that outlines its approach towards lobbying and political engagement. It also has the option to make a public statement affirming that it does not make any political contributions. To increase transparency, the company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities. Additionally, it may choose to require third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has opportunities to strengthen its commitment to ethical labor practices. It can set a clear time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage and disclose its achievement in this regard. Additionally, the company can provide transparency by explaining how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. While the company expects its suppliers to pay a living wage, it can also elaborate on how it actively supports suppliers in meeting this goal.

In terms of gender diversity, the company’s board currently consists of 6.67% women. To align with diversity standards, the company can publicly commit to reaching a minimum of 30% women on the board. Furthermore, to address gender pay equity, the company can disclose the ratio of basic salary and remuneration between women and men across various employee categories, categorized by significant locations of operation. These steps will reinforce the company’s commitment to gender equality, fair wages, and transparency in its operations.

Respect human rights
The company outlines its procedure for evaluating human rights risks, but it could further enhance transparency by identifying its significant human rights concerns. While the company provides insights into its human rights risk assessments and certain outcomes, there is room for improvement in terms of clarity in sharing the results. To strengthen its efforts, the company could also consider disclosing a comprehensive global framework for addressing, preventing, or mitigating its significant human rights concerns.