Sanderson Farms

Sustainable development strategy
The company reports consistently against all its targets.

No leading practices were identified in the environment area.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that 100% of its own operations are SQF certified.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses the proportion of its workforce for each employee category by gender and by race or ethnicity. The company also reports a 46% female representation on the board.

Respect human rights
The company discloses categories of stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities, which include workers, farmers and communities. Furthermore, it indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company 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 sustainability targets/objectives. 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 disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, it can provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, the company can report any (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 has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts. Additionally, it could disclose group wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to disclose reductions in Scope 1 and 2 and Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and set time-bound targets aligned with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree pathway.

Animal welfare
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment and targets that address key animal welfare issues in its supply chain.

Antibiotic use and growth promoting substances
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment and targets to reduce the use of antibiotics and growth promoting substances in its supply chain. Further, it could disclose a reduction in the total use of antibiotics classified as medically important antimicrobials by the World Health Organization.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report progress against them. It also has an opportunity to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3 (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.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate how it is improving the nutritional quality of its products and to set targets to increase the share of more nutritious products in its portfolio.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

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

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to prohibit child labour in its supply chain and an age-verification system for its value chain. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

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.

Land rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rightsas set out in the relevant part(s) of the VGGT’s or the IFC Performance Standards. Also, it could require its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rights holders paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rights holders, and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

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 an opportunity to disclose a policy on bribery and corruption and include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. It could also disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption as well as a grievance mechanism which allows stakeholders to raise related complaints.  Furthermore, the company could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and specify that it does not make political contributions and to divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
Although the company claims to respect worker health and safety, a public policy document could formalise this commitment. It could also provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards. Moreover, the company could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved it and explain how it determines a living wage in the regions it operates in. It could also disclose how it supports suppliers who pay a living wage.

While the company discloses the proportion of women in its workforce and management team, no evidence was found that the company has a public commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment and relevant targets. It could also disclose the ratio of women’s basic salary and remuneration to men.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. Additionally, it could describe a comprehensive process for identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, including its suppliers.

The company discloses the key risk it monitors in its operations as part of its ongoing human rights assessment process. It could also give a description of a process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered, such as geographical, economic and social factors.  The company could also disclose a global system to act on its salient human rights issues by preventing, mitigating or remediating the latter.