Sobeys

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% from the baseline year of 2020 by 2030. These targets are aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory and reflect the company’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the company has established a time-bound target to decrease its scope 3 emissions.

Animal welfare
The company discloses evidence of processes of animal welfare third-party certifications or third-party audits. It also discloses a target that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain and reports progress against it.

Food loss and waste
From 2021 to 2022, the amount of food loss and waste (FLW) generated by the company decreased. The company not only discloses its FLW reduction targets, but also reports progress towards achieving them. These targets are in line with SDG 12.3, which aims to reduce FLW by 50% by 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company shows strong commitment to reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging. They have implemented policies and activities to support these efforts. Additionally, the company provides quantitative data on their progress in reducing plastic use and increasing the use of sustainable packaging.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company demonstrates a strong commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture by providing qualitative evidence that aligns with environmental sourcing criteria.

Food safety
The company discloses that 100% of its suppliers are certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company requires suppliers to prohibit child labour and verify the age of recruited workers.

Forced labour
The company prohibits the payment of any recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, and it does not retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement in its supply chain.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers. Moreover, the company discloses it has 40% women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. It further indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, as well as all external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

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. While the company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability, it could link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Additionally, the company states that the board of directors has expertise in nutrition, climate and social inclusion. However, there is an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s other material sustainability topics, including biodiversity, ecosystem conversion, and water.

Lobbying and advocacy
While the company discloses that it works with numerous government bodies and trade associations, it has an opportunity disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions where it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities, beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to climate and ecosystem conversion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While the company reports on some of their targets, there is an opportunity to report consistently across all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to report progress against its scope 1 and 2 targets, as well as reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the company has the opportunity to report progress against its scope 3 targets, which can potentially 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 it encourages its suppliers to consider the judicious use of antibiotics and growth hormones, it has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the (prophylactic) use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances. It could also disclose targets to phase out their use across all species, geographies and products, and report progress against them.

Sustainable fishing and aquaculture
The company has the chance to provide quantitative evidence of its efforts to enhance sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. Additionally, it can disclose targets for sustainable fisheries and aquaculture covering its entire portfolio, and report its progress toward achieving these targets.

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

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to shift its focus from philanthropic to commercial activities to improve the accessibility of nutritious foods, especially for vulnerable groups. It can also implement commercial activities to improve the affordability of nutritious foods. Furthermore, the company can set targets to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods, especially for vulnerable groups, through its commercial activities.

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.

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.

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.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to responsible marketing and its marketing activities to promote healthy food options.

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

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.

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
For its operations, the company has an opportunity to prohibit the use of recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, retaining workers’ personal documents or restricting workers’ freedom of movement. Furthermore, it could indicate how it is building 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.

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 rights. Furthermore, it could describe a process at its operations and supply chain level to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land 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 could disclose a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and detail the process for identifying related risks and impacts. While the company incorporates anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with business relationships, it could clarify the consequences for breaching these clauses. Additionally, the company needs to clarify that all stakeholder can report bribery and concerns without fear of reprisals in its existing grievance mechanism. Moreover, the company can develop a policy that outlines its approach to lobbying and political engagement. It could specify whether contributions to community organizations are exceptions, and share the criteria used to decide them. Lastly, the company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to use stronger language in its health and safety policy statement to underscore its commitment. While it sets similar requirements from business relationships, it needs to clarify how it monitors supplier compliance.

Additionally, It could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage, or confirm that this target has been met. Further disclosure about how it determines a living wage can also be done. Relatedly, the company could enforce a requirement for suppliers to pay a living wage and outline supportive measures.

Moreover, although the company demonstrates commitment to diversity, it can explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could set related time-bound targets, and enhance transparency by disclosing information such as the ratio of the basic salary of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing it to respect human rights. While it already commits to specific workers’ rights, it has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, although the company conducts risk assessments to identify main risks to the business and while suppliers are expected to complete their own assessments and due diligence, the company has an opportunity to detail how it identifies human rights risks and impacts within its operations and supply chain. It could further describe its process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Moreover, the company could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.