Meiji

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

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses channels used to engage with stakeholder groups. Moreover, its stakeholder engagement activities cover nature, including biodiversity, nutrition and social areas.

Sustainable development strategy
The company reports consistently on progress against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has established greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction goals, planning to decrease GHG emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels, with a long-term commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Additionally, it shares progress against these targets. Furthermore, the company aims to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 30% by 2030. The company’s GHG emissions reduction targets are in line with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is committed to reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging by implementing related policies and activities. It has also disclosed a significant reduction of 16% in plastic usage. Furthermore, the company has set a target to further reduce plastic usage by 25% by 2030 through design changes and the adoption of alternative materials. Regular progress reports on the reduction target are provided.

Water withdrawal
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations and also reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses the percentage of sales from products with reduced fat, sugar, and salt.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses that it provides information fitting local needs on front of pack, while it has an opportunity to adopt an interpretive government-endorsed front-of-pack labelling system.

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.

Child labour
The company has implemented a Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation Systems to effectively monitor, remediate, and prevent instances of child labor. The company’s efforts have resulted in a 20% reduction in child labour within the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI)-assisted communities. Furthermore, its approach has successfully reduced hazardous child labour by 50% among at-risk children identified through the ICI’s monitoring systems.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company describes activities as part of its Meiji Cocoa Support program which includes purchasing cocoa beans at a premium price, distributing high-quality cocoa seedlings and fertilizer, free lending of agricultural equipment. Further, it describes how it promotes setting up VSLAs to enable farmers to form their own groups and manage members’ savings and loans, and provides advice on money management, farm operations and business management techniques.

Act ethically
The company discloses a global tax strategy and income tax payments for all its tax jurisdictions. Also, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain and provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards. Also, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group. Additionally, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and a target to increase the ratio of female managers to over 10% and Increase the number of female managers to at least 420 by financial year 2026.

Respect human rights
The company discloses a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and the fundamental rights at work declared by the ILO in its operations and supply chain.

Additionally, the company describes a comprehensive process for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain, and its salient human rights issues. It also specifies what it considers to be salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered such as geographical, economic and social factors. Furthermore, the company provides a case study describing how it has acted on a salient human rights risk issue and indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Lastly, it discloses categories of stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities such as employees, suppliers, customers, consumer, community residents, donors of human-derived raw materials and clinical trial subjects.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to ESG initiatives performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in nature-related objectives and social issues. While stating that the board of directors has the expertise in sustainability, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose whether its highest governance body has specific expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics including nutrition, climate, water, soil health, social inclusion, ecosystem conversion and biodiversity.

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 discloses the issues raised by its customer. However, it could disclose the topics raised by its other stakeholders during its engagement activities.

Sustainable development strategy
The company states that it has a materiality assessment; however, it has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how external stakeholders are involved in the process. While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and social inclusion, 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 the opportunity to decrease its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and report advancements made towards these targets.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose its efforts on deforestation or restoration. It could also develop a related strategy and report on specific, time-bound targets.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report related progress. Additionally, it has the chance to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to establish a sales-based target for increasing the presence of alternative proteins in its portfolio. Additionally, it can track and report progress made towards achieving this target.

Water withdrawal
The company currently discloses reduction targets for water consumption, absolute water use, and water intensity. However, there is room for improvement by also disclosing a target to reduce water withdrawal within its own operations and providing updates on the progress made. Additionally, the company can take advantage of the opportunity to collaborate with suppliers in order to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has announced plans to launch its Nutrient Profiling system in 2023. As part of this, it has the opportunity to adopt a nutrient profiling system that aligns with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines. Additionally, the company can set a sales-based target to increase the percentage of nutritious products in line with these guidelines.

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

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

Child labour
The company has the chance to share instances of remediation programs when it discovers cases of child labor in its operations. Although the company already prohibits its suppliers from employing child labor, it can take it a step further and mandate the implementation of an age-verification system. From October 2021 to September 2022, the company discloses both identified and resolved cases of child labor. However, it should also consider providing an analysis of trends to showcase the progress being made in eradicating child labor from its supply chain.

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.

Act ethically
While the company states that bribery and corruption is prohibited in supplier code of conduct, it has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contractual agreements with business relationships. Furthermore, it could disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption beyond audits for fraud and a grievance mechanism allowing stakeholders to raise related concerns. Additionally, although the company prohibits illegal political contributions, it has an opportunity to disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and state that it does not make political contributions and divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it pays a legal wage and expects the same in its supply chain, it could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage. It could also describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates and how it works to support its suppliers in paying a living wage.

Furthermore, although the company commits to gender equality, it has an opportunity to commit to women’s empowerment. It could disclose that it has at least 30% women on the board along with the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.