Sumitomo Chemical

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the frequencies and channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Moreover, its engagement activities cover nature, nutrition, and social areas.

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 aims to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% compared to 2013 levels by 2030. Additionally, the company has set a time-bound target to decrease its scope 3 emissions.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company shows their commitment to reducing plastic use and transitioning to sustainable packaging through various policies and activities. They also provide quantitative data on their efforts to reduce plastic use and use sustainable packaging.

Water withdrawal
The company has taken steps to reduce water withdrawal in its own operations. It has set a clear and time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal, and it consistently reports on its progress towards achieving this target.

Workforce nutrition
The company discloses its TABLE FOR TWO (TFT) programme which provides matching donation fund as an incentive for its employees to eat healthy food provided by the TFT in its company cafeterias.

No leading practices were identified in the social inclusion area.

Act ethically
The company has disclosed its global tax strategy and also established a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to voice concerns and report instances of bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
Sumitomo Chemical has a publicly available policy statement that emphasizes its commitment to prioritizing the health and safety of its workers. Furthermore, the company publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Additionally, the company openly discloses the percentage of women in its direct operations workforce for each job category. It also sets a clear objective to have 10% of women occupying managerial positions or above by the end of fiscal 2022.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement that commits it to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, the company has another publicly available policy statement that expects all suppliers to also respect these core labour rights. Furthermore, the company describes a specific process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in relation to its own operations, considering various locations and activities.

Moreover, the company states that it provides a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to all workers. Importantly, the company also ensures that this mechanism is accessible to external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by their operations.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in nature-related objectives and 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.

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, beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to climate, social inclusion and biodiversity. 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, including those related to climate, there is an opportunity to report consistently across all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company reports that its overall scope 1 and 2 emissions have increased in FY21 compared to FY20. However, the company has the opportunity to reduce its emissions and make progress towards achieving its scope 1 and 2 targets. Although the company has obtained certification for its GHG emissions reduction targets under the SBT’s well Below 2°C standard (Scope 1+2), there is no evidence to suggest that these targets are aligned with a 1.5°C trajectory. There is potential for the company to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. The company also has the opportunity to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, set a corresponding reduction target that is aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory, as well as report progress towards achieving this target.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose targets to optimise the use of fertilizers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against the targets.

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 report the amount of water it withdraws for its own operations in water-stressed areas and engage with suppliers to reduce their water withdrawals.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to engage in nutrition-sensitive activities that contribute to improving the nutritional quality and variety of foods. Additionally, the company can disclose the outcomes of these activities.

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 disclose quantitative evidence on its healthy food at work programme and to expand its nutrition initiatives to its supply chain workers.

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 has in place expectations for its suppliers on the prohibition of child labour, it could disclose related policy requirements including the use of age verification systems for workers.

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.

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 openly publish a policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption. Additionally, it could strengthen its stance by incorporating anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with business relationships, reinforcing its commitment to ethical practices. While the company conducts assessments of anti-corruption regulations and risks in various countries, it could enhance transparency by describing its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks within its own operations.

Furthermore, the company could establish a comprehensive policy outlining its approach to lobbying and political engagement. To foster transparency, it could publicly declare a policy statement confirming its abstention from making political contributions. Disclosing expenditures related to lobbying activities would provide stakeholders with a more complete picture. Moreover, it could require third-party lobbyists to adhere to the company’s lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company provides certain health and safety information, it could enhance disclosure by including data on the number of hours worked. Additionally, the company could disclose a policy statement requiring its suppliers to respect the health and safety of their workers. Also, it discloses monitoring of health and safety performance in its business relationships, but there is an opportunity to provide more details about its monitoring methods.

Also, the company could share a time-bound target for paying a living wage to all workers and disclose how it determines a living wage for different regions. Moreover, it could add a requirement for suppliers to pay a living wage, accompanied by disclosure of support measures.

While the company has a modest representation of women on its board, it could further improve gender diversity. Additionally, disclosing the ratio of women’s to men’s salaries in various employee categories would contribute to transparency on gender pay equity.

Respect human rights
While the company already conducts human rights due diligence, there’s potential to provide more detailed insights into how it identifies risks and impacts within its supply chain. The company currently outlines its process for assessing human rights risks, yet it could further specify its salient human rights issues and disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment. Additionally, disclosing a comprehensive global system to address, prevent, or mitigate these issues would demonstrate a proactive commitment to human rights.