METRO

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member. The list covers all jurisdictions in which it operates.

Sustainable development strategy
The company has group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain. The targets are time-bound and covering topics, including water, nutrition, climate, ecosystem conversion, and social inclusion.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and scope 2 emissions and reports on progress against these targets. It also aims to reduce scope 3 emissions and has established a time-bound target for this and provides updates on its progress.

Animal welfare
The company’s animal welfare targets are applicable to all species, geographies and products. Furthermore, its policies and/or targets address all of the key animal welfare issues for each species.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitment, has policies, or partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. Additionally, it discloses quantitative data with regards to plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company shares data on its reformulation activities, aiming to reduce levels of salt, sugar, fat, and additives. Additionally, it discloses a target to increase the number of products with reduced sugar, salt, and saturated fatty acids.

Child labour
The company includes child labour requirements in its code of conduct for business partners, which includes a prohibition on using child labour. It also states that its business partners are responsible for verifying the age of recruited workers.

Living wage
The company describes that it uses the Anker Methodology to determine a living wage for the regions where it sources.

Act ethically
The company demonstrates its commitment to protect personal data by disclosing a public commitment. Additionally, it has a group-wide compliance management system (CMS) in place that conducts regular audits and compliance checks to address bribery and corruption. It also includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. To further encourage transparency, the company has a grievance mechanism, providing all stakeholders with access to an online website to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption, without fear of reprisals.

Provide and promote decent work
The company publicly commits to worker health and safety, requiring business partners to prioritise well-being. It limits work to 48 regular or 60 total weekly hours, requiring consent and premium payment for overtime.

For gender equality and women’s empowerment, the company aims for 25% and 40% women in first and second management levels by September 2025. It also targets 30% women in levels 1-3 management and one female management board member by June 2022. Currently, 35% of the supervisory board is female. Furthermore, the company discloses workforce composition by age group and women’s presence in each employee category.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, the company has a publicly available policy statement that expects suppliers to respect these same ILO core labour rights.

To provide a channel for employees to voice any complaints or raise concerns related to human rights issues, the company has established a grievance mechanism. This system is accessible to all workers through an online website, allowing complainants the option to remain anonymous or choose to identify themselves.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability performance but could further link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Furthermore, while it states that the board of directors has expertise in social inclusion, it has an opportunity to disclose whether it has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics including climate, biodiversity, ecosystem conversion, nutrition, water, and soil health.

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. Moreover, while it states all of its engagement activities related to climate change are in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, it has an opportunity to report (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
The company states that it has a materiality assessment but could further disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how external stakeholders are involved in the process. Furthermore, while it reports on progress against targets related to water, climate and ecosystem conversion, it could report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets, and its scope 3 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some evidence of addressing conversion. However, this does not guarantee DCF-aligned practices. While it has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it could make it time-bound and group-wide.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to adopt a nutrient profiling system that aligns with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines and to set a sales-based target to increase the percentage of more nutritious products.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it provides nutritional information on its products and how it supports consumers with making healthy food choices through its labelling schemes.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to responsible marketing and its marketing activities to promote healthy food options.

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 describe how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose requirements related to forced labour 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. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Living wage
While the company discloses a target to pay a living wage in its own brand supply chains, it has an opportunity to expand this target to cover all direct suppliers. Also, it could disclose the percentage of workers across its own operations or direct 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. Similarly, the company outlines its approach to lobbying and political engagement on its website but could strengthen this through a dedicated policy document.

Additionally, the company could explicitly state its non-involvement in political contributions in a policy statement. To enhance transparency, it could disclose its lobbying expenditures. Moreover, the company could establish a requirement for third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to improve the transparency of its supplier health and safety monitoring process. Additionally, while the company currently pays minimum wage to its employees, it could set a time-bound target for paying a living wage and disclose how it determines what constitutes a living wage in the regions where it operates.

Furthermore, although the company has already established expectations for supplier wages, it has an opportunity to strengthen these requirements by mandating a living wage and disclosing the measures it takes to support the payment.

Lastly, the company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosure practices by providing information on the ratio of women’s basic salary and remuneration to men in its direct operations workforce.

Respect human rights
The company acknowledges human rights as a top priority through materiality analysis but can elaborate on the process of identifying these risks in specific locations, covering its own operations and supply chain. Moreover, it could disclose its human rights risk assessment results.

The company also has an opportunity to further detail its approach to identifying salient human rights issues and disclose a comprehensive global system to address, prevent, or mitigate these concerns.