San Miguel Food and Beverage

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

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company reduces its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions.

Water withdrawal
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company demonstrates how it works to improve farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supports farmers to increase their bargaining power.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. Furthermore, it discloses that it has a website, email and phone number, accessible to everyone to raise bribery and corruption concerns and complaints without fear of reprisals.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers. It also discloses the number of employees covered with collective bargaining agreements.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. Besides, it discloses that it has a website, email and phone number, accessible to everyone to raise complaints or concerns related to the company with an option to identify himself/herself or remain anonymous.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company states that it has a team of sustainability champions. However, it has an opportunity to strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by designating an individual or body to implement its sustainability strategy and by assigning decision-making and oversight to its highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Additionally, it could disclose if the highest governance body has expertise in its 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.

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 the outcome of the process. While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including water, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain and to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company can take advantage of an opportunity to decrease its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, it has the opportunity to set time-bound reduction targets for scope 1,2 and 3 emissions in alignment with a 1.5-degree trajectory and report progress against these targets.

Animal welfare
The company has an opportunity to set animal welfare targets applicable to all species, geographies and products.

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

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, as well as report progress against this target.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities and targets to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, and report progress against them.

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 discloses that it is implementing a program to limit sodium in its processed foods in line with the WHO’s threshold. 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.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to adopt front-of-pack labels or any other consumer- facing nutrition labels that support consumers with making healthier food choices. In addition, it can 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 demonstrate that 100% of its own operations are certified to a GFSI food safety scheme/certification programme or other widely recognised (industry-specific) certification. Additionally, it can disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
While the company has health and wellbeing promotion programs for its employees, it has an opportunity to enhance the program by incorporating nutrition-focused health checks or nutrition education. It could also disclose the length covered by its parental leave policy, as well as any other breastfeeding supports such as dedicated breastfeeding rooms or flexible working hours for breastfeeding mothers. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to implement a programme to offer healthy food options to its employees.

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 prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place.

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.

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 has the potential to outline its methodology for identifying bribery and corruption risks and their impacts in specific areas or activities, particularly focusing on its own operations. It could also establish a policy that lays out its approach to lobbying and political engagement, enhancing transparency and accountability. To reinforce its commitment, it could release a publicly available policy statement confirming its non-participation in political contributions.

Furthermore, disclosing its expenditures related to lobbying activities would enhance transparency. Lastly, the company could assert that third-party lobbyists are required to adhere to its established lobbying and political engagement policy, reinforcing ethical standards.

Provide and promote decent work
The company could disclose its approach to monitoring the health and safety performance of its suppliers. While the company currently pays its employees minimum wage, it has the chance to demonstrate a stronger commitment by establishing a time-bound goal to achieve a living wage. Moreover, disclosing the methodology used to determine living wages in different regions would add clarity. To reinforce its stance on fair compensation, it could consider extending its supplier expectations to include a requirement for them to pay a living wage and outlining how it facilitates such payments.

While the company acknowledges gender equality and women’s empowerment, formalizing these principles within a public policy document would underscore its commitment. Furthermore, it could disclose time-bound targets for gender equality and women’s empowerment. Lastly, revealing the gender-based ratio of basic salary and remuneration within its total direct operations workforce.

Respect human rights
The company’s existing policy statement commits to specific workers’ rights, but there’s an opportunity to broaden this commitment by referencing all ILO fundamental rights at work. Additionally, it could strengthen its supplier relationships by revealing a policy statement that mandates adherence to ILO-declared fundamental rights at work.

The company also has room to describe its methodology for identifying human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, both within its own operations and across its supply chain. Furthermore, sharing its process for assessing and identifying significant human rights concerns would enhance transparency. Disclosing the outcomes of its human rights risk assessment and establishing a global framework to address, prevent, or mitigate these significant human rights issues would underscore the company’s commitment to responsible practices.