Novozymes

No leading practices were identified for the company in the governance and strategy measurement area.

Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions
Novozymes discloses that it is committed to reduce its absolute Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 50% by 2030, relative to a 2018 baseline. The company reports against this target on an annual basis and has stated that it aims to become carbon neutral by 2050. The company’s target is in line with a with a 1.5 degrees scenario and has been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

No leading practices were identified for the company in the nutrition measurement area.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the social inclusion measurement area.

Sustainable development strategy
Novozymes discloses objectives covering environment, social inclusion and governance issues. The company shares its materiality assessment process that integrates inputs from external stakeholders, trend analyses and internal engagement with relevant departments including Investor Relations, Risk Management & Controls, Quality and Sustainability and leadership from the commercial divisions. The company also sets targets and reports the progress against these targets in its annual report. However, the company lacks objectives covering nutrition measurement area, presenting an opportunity for future reporting.

Governance and accountability framework
Novoymes reports that it has a Corporate Sustainability Committee which reports directly to the Executive Leadership Team. The committee consists of members from senior leadership and is chaired by the Executive Vice President of People, Sustainability & Brand function. The company confirms that the overall responsibility of the company’s sustainability strategy lies with its highest governance body in the leadership team. Novozymes discloses its remuneration policy which aligns with the sustainability performance of the company for its management level. However, the policy does not align with all three benchmark measurement areas, presenting an opportunity for the company going forward.

Stakeholder engagement
While Novozymes does not disclose an overview of its stakeholder engagement process, the company provides evidence on engagement with local stakeholders, including governments. The company shares examples of integrations of the engagement activities into its sustainability strategy, such as setting up its long-term water strategy. However, there remains an opportunity for the company to include nutrition in to its engagement, and no identification process of stakeholders was found in the public domain.

Water use
Novozymes discloses its short-term target to develop contextual water management programs for all of its key sites by 2022. However, the company reports a 2% increase in water consumption. The company could improve by aligning its time-bound targets to reduce water across its own operations and report the progress against its target on an annual basis.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company does not disclose that it is adopting sustainable production practices that improves soil health and increase agrobiodiversity.

Food loss and waste
Novozymes commits to prevent 500,000 tons of food by improving efficiency from farm to table in 2022 and achieve 100% circular management of its biomass by 2022. The company reports that it has prevented 136,000 tons of food waste in 2020 using its solutions. Going forward, the company could strengthen its impact in this topic even further by collaborating with value chain partners on preventing further food loss and waste.

Availability of healthy foods
Novozymes discloses activities which look to increase the production and variety of healthy and nutritious food. This includes products which help to increase fibre content and reduce sugar. The company also discloses its collaboration with its business partners to provide solutions on product (re)formulation. However, there lacks quantitative evidence on the impact of these activities, providing an opportunity for the company in future reporting.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
The company does not disclose a commitment or activities to increase the availability of healthy and nutritious foods.

Food safety
While the company discloses compliance with national regulations and the Codex General Principles of Food Hygiene, it has an opportunity to strengthen its commitment by disclosing the percentages of its own operations that are certified to a food safety certification programme recognised by the Global Food Safety Initiative, or other widely recognised certifications.

Child Labour
While the company commits to prohibiting child labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard, it has an opportunity to disclose a policy requiring its suppliers to have an age-verification system in place.

Forced Labour
While the company commits to prohibiting forced labour in its own operations and supply chain, it has an opportunity to disclose a requirement that prohibits its suppliers from retaining workers’ personal documents and restricting workers’ freedom of movement.

Living Wage
Novozymes discloses that it requires suppliers to pay its workers at least the legal minimum standards. The company could improve by including a target for paying a living wage across all its operations and including paying a living wage as a requirement in its purchase guidelines.

Novozymes commits to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights, and has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its supply chain partners to commit to respecting them as well. Furthermore, the company has a whistle-blower system available to employees as well as external stakeholders, which can be used anonymously and to raise human and labour rights concerns. However, the company does not describe the process to identify its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities through its supply chain or it discloses what are its salient human rights risks. To conclude, the company fails to publicly identify and provide information about stakeholders’ engagement.

Novozymes commits to health and safety and gender equality, expecting its supply chain partners to provide a safe and healthy working environment while monitoring their performance. The company also discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by gender, but it does not provide the same information by age, ethnicity, and additional indicators of diversity. In addition, Novozymes can improve its performance by increasing its disclosure on key metrics related to health and safety for workers. There is an opportunity for the company to strengthen its commitments and disclosure on living wage, working hours and collective bargaining in its own operations and supply chain.

By disclosing policies and relevant metrics on personal data protection and bribery and corruption, Novozymes demonstrates a strong commitment to these two ethical business topics. There is room for the company to improve its performance on tax by disclosing the amount of corporate income tax paid for each tax jurisdiction, since it already has a publicly global tax strategy approved by the highest governance body. Although Novozymes has a publicly available policy on lobbying and political engagement, it does not specify that it does not make political contributions and it discloses its expenditure on policy advocacy for U.S only, without providing information on third-party lobbyists.