NH Foods

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.

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
The company reduces its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Animal welfare
The company discloses a target(s) that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain and reports progress against the target.

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.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company provides qualitative evidence of a commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture with reference to environmental sourcing criteria.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company is committed to protecting personal data and has publicly disclosed this commitment. Additionally, the company has also disclosed its global tax strategy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company shares data on the gender composition across various employee categories within its direct operations. It has set multiple targets for gender diversity: aiming to have women occupy at least 20% of supervisory positions and 20% or more of executive roles by 2030. Additionally, it seeks to increase the percentage of female managers to 20% and the proportion of women in supervisory roles to 35% by the same year.

Respect human rights
The company publicly commits to respecting human rights and adhering to the ILO’s core labor rights through available policy statements. It also notes the existence of a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to all of its workers.

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 nature, including biodiversity, 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 report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on sustainability-related issues, and whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

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

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has disclosed its targets for reducing fossil fuel-derived CO2 emissions in Japan by 46% by 2030 compared to 2013, and overseas by 24% compared to 2021. However, it is unclear whether these targets will result in a total reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions across all operations. It is important for the company to report progress on these Scope 1 and 2 targets, as well as align its targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. By doing so, the company can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in these scopes.

Additionally, the company has the opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. It is also crucial for the company to report progress on 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
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the (prophylactic) use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances. Moreover, it can disclose targets to phase out the prophylactic use of antibiotics across all species, geographies and products and report progress against them.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities and time-bound, group-wide targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company demonstrates a clear dedication to sustainable fishing and aquaculture, but there is potential for improvement in providing quantitative evidence to showcase the progress made in these areas. Although the company has set a target for fishing and aquaculture and provides updates on its progress, it would be beneficial to also specify a timeframe for achieving this target.

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 disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company provides examples of reformulated products. However, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the presence of positive nutrients in its entire portfolio. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to establish nutrition criteria and to set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to showcase that all of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme or another well-known certification program specific to the industry. Additionally, the company has the chance to disclose the percentage of food suppliers that are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

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

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of workforce nutrition programmes.

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 has in place expectations for its suppliers on the prohibition of child labour, it could disclose related policy requirements including the use of an age verification for workers.

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 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.

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 prohibits bribery and corruption but could formalize this stance in a public policy document. The company has an opportunity to outline its methods for identifying bribery and corruption risks in specific locations or within its own operations. It could also include clauses against bribery and corruption in contracts with business partners. Although a mechanism exists for stakeholders to report bribery and corruption issues, it’s not clear if it’s accessible to everyone or allows for anonymous reporting. The company could adopt a policy detailing its approach to lobbying and political engagement. While it discloses making political donations, further clarification is needed on whether these are exceptional cases and what criteria guide these donations. The company could also disclose its lobbying expenditures and require third-party lobbyists to adhere to its policy on lobbying and political engagement.

Provide and promote decent work
The company states it prioritizes worker health and safety but could formalize this commitment in a public policy. It could also release a policy requiring suppliers to uphold worker health and safety, as well as disclose its monitoring procedures for supplier compliance. The company has an opportunity to announce a time-specific goal for providing all workers with a living wage, clarify its methodology for determining what constitutes a living wage in various regions, and encourage suppliers to also pay a living wage. Though the company aims for 20% of supervisory roles to be held by women by 2030, it lacks a public commitment to women’s empowerment. It discloses its gender pay gap for FY 2021 but does not provide detailed data comparing the basic salary and remuneration of women to men across different employee categories and significant locations of operation. All members of its audit and supervisory board are male.

Respect human rights
The company expects suppliers to adhere to the ILO’s fundamental work rights, but hasn’t formalized this expectation in an official policy. Although the company plans to enact a human rights due diligence process, there is no public evidence describing its methods for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts in its own operations or its supply chain. The company could provide more details on its process for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues, disclose the outcomes of its human rights risk assessments, and reveal a global system designed to act on, prevent, or mitigate these salient human rights risks.