Southern States Cooperative

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

No leading practices were identified in the environment area.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company demonstrates its ability to empower farmers to act strategically in their relationships with buyers. It achieves this by bringing farmers together and facilitating their collective purchasing of inputs, including fertilizers, seeds, and feed. Additionally, the company indirectly allows farmers to become owners and operators of farming infrastructure.

No leading practices were identified in the core social indicators area.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to report on sustainability accountability within its governance structure.

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 sustainability strategy with nature and social-related targets.

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.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose its efforts to avoid ecosystem conversion, including deforestation or restoration. It could develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

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

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.

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 disclose its commitment and activities to address malnutrition and food insecurity.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to food safety and demonstrate that its operations and supply chain adhere to food safety standards.

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.

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.

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, it 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
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain and it could provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards. Furthermore, it could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. It could also disclose how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. Furthermore, the company could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose related targets. It could also disclose the representation of women on the highest governance body and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the human rights that the ILO has declared to be fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain.
Additionally, the company could describe a comprehensive process for identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities, including its suppliers. It could 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.  It could also disclose a global system to act on its salient human rights issues by preventing, mitigating or remediating the latter.