OCP

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

Water use
The company has several targets to reduce water withdrawals across its own operations. These include having 100% of water needs covered by non-conventional water sources by 2030 and reducing by 5% water-specific consumption in processing by 2024 compared to 2019 levels. It discloses its progress against these targets. Furthermore, it shares its freshwater withdrawals from regions with high or extremely high baseline water stress according to the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Risk Atlas.

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

Farmer productivity and resilience
OCP Group shows leadership in supporting the resilience, productivity and access to markets for farmers through its flagship programmes Agribooster and Al Moutmir. The farmer-centric programmes offer end-to-end value chain solutions that address major bottlenecks faced by farmers, bringing together all the conditions necessary to increase yields and revenues. The company discloses quantitative data on the impact on farmer productivity, reporting a 33% additional average yield for its Agribooster programme and 55% increase in agricultural yield for its Al-Moutmir programme.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses a materiality assessment and has defined three priority areas: responsible and inclusive management, sustainable production and shared value creation. It has established time-bound targets for each of its most relevant sustainability topics and reports against these targets. However, there is an opportunity for OCP Group to develop targets and objectives that directly address its role around nutrition.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development 
The company discloses that its decision-making process and oversight responsibilities for its sustainability strategy lie with its highest governance body. Furthermore, it links its executives’ annual reward system to environmental, social and governance metrics. However, there is room for OCP Group to enhance its governance and accountability mechanisms by linking this reward system to sustainability performance on topics across all three benchmark measurement areas of environment, nutrition and social inclusion.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has mapped its stakeholders in its sphere of influence and discloses the channels used for its engagement activities. It has notably developed the Act4Community programme to engage with local communities. Nevertheless, there is room for OCP Group to improve on its stakeholder engagement disclosure by clarifying the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement activities.

Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions
OCP Group discloses a time-bound target to reduce by 50% its carbon footprint by 2030 from a 2014 baseline as well as to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. It reports against the targets, disclosing quantitative reductions in its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. However, there is an opportunity for the company to demonstrate further leadership through external verification of the targets to show they are aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
While the company provides some quantitative evidence on sustainable practices that improve soil health, it only partially addresses soil health reinforcement through its target of doubling its research & development budget by 2025. The company could, therefore, strengthen its soil health objectives by disclosing an explicit target as well as more data on the impact of its products on soil health.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
While OCP Group states in its Sustainability Report that it aims ‘to produce more with fewer resources and environmental impacts’, the company only shares some quantitative data on increased yields. Considering its leading global market position, there is a great opportunity for OCP Group to strengthen its commitment by disclosing a time-bound target to optimise fertiliser use and reporting against it.

Availability of healthy foods
The company states that biostimulant products ‘result in better nutrient absorption, higher resistance to different climatic stressors (heat, rainfall, etc.), as well as producing fruits and vegetables with higher nutritional value’. However, there is room for OCP to improve its disclosure on nutrition by providing quantitative evidence on the nutritional outcomes of its products.

Accessibility and affordability of healthy foods
OCP Group develops projects specifically designed to address food accessibility. Its flagship programmes Agribooster and Al Moutmir offer end-to-end value chain solutions to farmers. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity for OCP Group to improve on the reporting of the programmes. While the company provides quantitative data on its activities, it does not provide enough evidence on the impact linked to nutrition and food security. Furthermore, OCP Group could increase its accountability and transparency by disclosing a time-bound target to improve the accessibility or affordability of healthy foods.

Workforce nutrition
OCP Group provides evidence of a workforce nutrition programme and nutrition education programme. There is room for the company to improve its disclosure on both nutrition-focused health checks and breastfeeding support company-wide.

Land rights
While OCP Group states in its Group Community Engagement Policy that it is committed to respecting and promoting the rights of local communities, it is unclear whether this applies to local community land rights. As such, the company lacks a strong commitment to recognise and respect the legitimate tenure rights related to the ownership and use of land of local communities.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
OCP Group does not sufficiently recognise the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers. There is an opportunity for the company to show leadership by recognising the issue and increasing its disclosure on the topic.

Child labour
The company is committed to prohibiting child labour in its own operations and requires its suppliers to adhere to the same standard. However, it does not disclose details of a coordinated and consistent monitoring system for its own operations and supply chain.

Forced labour
The company lacks a commitment to prohibit forced labour in its own operations and supply chain. As such, the company does not provide evidence of eliminating and preventing forced labour in its own operations and supply chain.

OCP Group commits to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights. It also has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its supply chain partners to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. The company has a grievance mechanism that is accessible to both employees and external stakeholders. It identifies and assesses salient human risk issues in its supply chain. However, there is room for improvement in its system to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues, as it is unclear whether the system is global and applicable to its supply chain. Equally, there is an opportunity to strengthen disclosure on engagement activities with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by the company’s activities.

OCP Group commits to health and safety, collective bargaining, workforce diversity and gender equality, but it can improve its performance by increasing its disclosure on key metrics related to these topics. Moreover, the company has not made commitments to pay a living wage and can strengthen its existing commitments and expectations regarding working hours in its own operations and supply chain.

By disclosing policies and relevant metrics on personal data protection, tax, and bribery and corruption, OCP Group demonstrates a strong commitment to ethical business conduct. However, the company can improve its disclosure on income tax payments on a country-by-country basis as well as strengthen its policies on lobbying and political engagement activities.