Saputo

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

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company is actively working to lower its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and has set specific targets with set timeframes for achieving reductions. Progress towards these goals is regularly reported by the company. Additionally, efforts are also being made by the company to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. It also discloses quantitative data with regards to plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Water withdrawal
The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has disclosed that it developed a nutrient profiling model (NPM) and mapped its entire global portfolio to assess the nutritional performance of its products. Additionally, it has revealed that currently, 82% of its products meet the criteria of its NPM. This includes specified thresholds for calories, saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium.

Food safety
The company demonstrates that all of its own operations are certified to a food safety scheme that is recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). Additionally, the company reveals that 96% of its food suppliers are also certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and incorporates anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships.

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. It extends this commitment to its suppliers, and reveals how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. Furthermore, the company discloses the proportion of women in its workforce for each employee category, and reports a 60% representation of women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to nature-related objectives but can further link this policy to improvement in social issues. While stating that the board of directors has the expertise in sustainability, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose whether its highest governance body has specific expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics including nutrition, climate, water, soil health, social inclusion, ecosystem conversion and biodiversity.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, it could provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets and 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 an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

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 how external stakeholders are involved in the process. While it discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and ecosystem conversion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. It reports against some targets including climate; however, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, the company can disclose a time-bound target to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the company has the chance to report progress on these scope 3 targets. Lastly, the company’s scope 3 emissions targets can be aligned 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
While the company states that its dairy division supports the responsible and judicious use of antibiotics, it has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the (prophylactic) use of antibiotics and growth promoting substances. It could also disclose targets to phase out their prophylactic use across all species, geographies and products, and report progress against the targets.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some evidence of addressing conversion. However, this does not guarantee DCF-aligned practices. While it has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, certification models are not specified so there is no guarantee that it is DCF-aligned.

Food loss and waste
The company discloses its FLW reduction target and tracks progress against it. However, there has been an increase in FLW from 2021 to 2022. The company now has an opportunity to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction by 2030.

Water withdrawal
The company currently discloses the total volume of water withdrawn for some aspects of its operations. However, it also has the chance to showcase a reduction in water withdrawal across all of its operations. This can be achieved by setting a time-bound target to decrease water withdrawal and regularly reporting on progress. Additionally, the company can take advantage of an opportunity to collaborate with its suppliers in order to reduce water withdrawal collectively.

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 has an opportunity to demonstrate how its NPM aligns with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines. Additionally, the company can set a sales-based target to enhance the proportion of nutritious products.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it provides nutritional information on its products and how it supports consumers with making healthy food choices through its labelling schemes.

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 set up initiatives to improve the sustainability of the farms but it has an opportunity to demonstrate how it improves farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships. Also, it could 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.

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 can describe its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities within its operations. Additionally, it should clarify that the mechanism for stakeholders to report bribery and corruption concerns is accessible to all stakeholders.

Furthermore, while the company has guidelines for employees regarding political and lobbying activities, it should outline its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document. It should also make a clear policy statement that the company does not make any political contributions and disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company claims to pay a minimum wage to its employees, it could consider committing to a living wage by setting time-bound targets. It should also disclose the methodology used to determine a living wage for its operational regions. Additionally, though the company has set wage expectations for its suppliers, it should require them to pay a living wage and disclose how it supports this payment.

Furthermore, despite the company’s commitment to equal opportunity and diversity, it should explicitly pledge to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could establish specific, time-bound targets for improving gender representation in the workplace and enhance transparency by reporting the salary and remuneration ratio between women and men.

Respect human rights
While the company adheres to the strict principles in relation to human rights, the company has the opportunity to explicitly commit to respecting human rights in a formal policy document. Although the company has a publicly available statement committing to specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain, it should also reference all ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, despite conducting a materiality assessment to identify main business risks, the company has yet to outline its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its operations and supply chain. It should also detail its approach to assessing and identifying salient human rights issues. Moreover, the company should disclose a global system for acting on, preventing, or mitigating these salient human rights issues.