McCormick

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

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.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has successfully reduced its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Notably, it has achieved its emission targets for scope 1 and 2 four years ahead of schedule and has established new time-bound targets to reduce its emissions across all scopes. Specifically, it aims to decrease its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030, in alignment with the 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, it provides regular updates on its progress towards these targets especially for scope 1 and 2.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is committed to reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging. It has implemented policies and practices related to this commitment. Additionally, the company provides quantitative data regarding their efforts to reduce plastic use and increase the adoption of sustainable packaging materials.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities to improve soil health and agrobiodiversity in its production and sourcing practices. It provides qualitative evidence on regenerative agricultural practices, soil testing, and the implementation of comprehensive development programs in partnership with external stakeholders.

Water withdrawal
The company discloses the amount of water it withdraws for its own operations in water-stressed areas. Moreover, the company actively collaborates with suppliers to minimize water withdrawal.

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. Additionally, the company reveals that 64.4% of ingredients obtained from Tier 1 suppliers are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme as of 2022.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has a clear objective of increasing the resilience of 90% of smallholder farmers who cultivate its key ingredients, which include herbs and spices. It achieves this by sourcing directly from local cooperatives in the spice supply chain, working to strengthen the farming communities in Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, Madagascar, and India. Through this collaboration, the cooperatives gain access to working capital, enabling them to purchase and process products from their member farmers. Furthermore, it has invested in collaborations to improve access to financing and income diversification for vanilla farmers in Madagascar.

Act ethically
The company has a publicly disclosed global tax strategy overseen by its Board of Directors. It also maintains a policy against bribery and corruption, incorporates anti-corruption clauses in contracts with direct business relationships, and provides a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a public policy committing to the health and safety of its workers and expects its business relationships to do the same. It also discloses the methods used to monitor the health and safety practices of its business partners. The company reports that a specific proportion of its direct workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements. It sets a goal to achieve 50% female leadership by 2025 and states that 36.36% of its board members are women.

Respect human rights
The company publicly commits to requiring its suppliers to adhere to ILO core labor rights. It offers a grievance mechanism for all employees to report human rights issues and extends this mechanism to external stakeholders potentially affected by its operations.

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 how it engages with stakeholders, the issues raised during such activities, and the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company reports against progress on some targets including those related to climate and ecosystem conversion, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the chance to decrease its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and report its progress towards achieving these targets.

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 the opportunity to provide quantitative evidence of its reductions in water withdrawal across its operations. Not only does the company have a target for reducing water withdrawals, but it also has the chance to report on its progress towards achieving this goal.

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.

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
While the company does not allow suppliers to retain workers’ personal documents and restrict workers’ freedom of movement, it has an opportunity to disclose similar commitments for its operations. Furthermore, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees or related costs in its value chain. To conclude, the company has an opportunity to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Act ethically
The company has a bribery and corruption identification process but could enhance transparency by disclosing more details. While its Political Activity Policy outlines the approach to lobbying and political engagement, further specifics could be provided. The company states it makes political contributions after internal approvals from Company’s Management Committee and the Government Affairs Council, but could clarify if these are exceptional cases and outline the criteria for making them. Although some lobbying expenditures are disclosed, the company could either disclose expenditures across all lobbying activities or specify the countries or regions where these activities occur. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to state that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company pays its employees the minimum wage, there’s an opportunity to commit to a living wage through a time-bound target. The company could also disclose its methodology for determining a living wage in various operating regions. Although it sets wage expectations for suppliers, the company could require them to pay a living wage and detail how it supports this initiative. While the company has expressed commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment, it could formalize this stance in a public policy document. The company does disclose its UK gender pay gap and an improved index score for France, but it hasn’t provided data on the gender pay ratio across different employee categories and significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
The company has a public policy statement on human rights, but could make it a formal commitment with stronger language. Although it commits to specific workers’ rights, there’s an opportunity to include all ILO fundamental rights. While the company has identified some human rights risks in its operations, it could disclose the process used for this identification. It generally states that it conducts due diligence, but could specify that this includes a human rights component and covers its supply chain. The company has the opportunity to describe how it assesses what it considers to be its key human rights issues and could also disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment.