Suntory

Lobbying and advocacy
While the company discloses some industry associations it is a member of, it has an opportunity to provide a full list for all geographies where it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the channels it uses to engage with each stakeholder group.

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 targets to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions. These targets aim to reduce emissions from the company’s direct operations by 50% by 2030, and across its entire value chain by 30% by the same year. The company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions targets are in alignment with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Additionally, the company has disclosed a target to reduce its scope 3 emissions, which include emissions from its wider supply chain. The aim is to achieve a 30% reduction in scope 3 emissions by 2050. These scope 3 emissions targets are also aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitment, has policies or partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. Moreover, it provides detailed quantitative data regarding its efforts in plastic reduction and the utilization of sustainable packaging. The company has also established specific goals, such as reducing virgin polymer production, minimizing overall plastic consumption and waste, and increasing the percentage of reusable or refillable packaging. It consistently reports on its progress in achieving these targets.

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 It also reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has set a target to reduce added sugar by 35% across its portfolio by 2025. Additionally, it has shared data on the reduction of sugar in beverages across various countries.

Workforce nutrition
The company has implemented programmes for workplace breastfeeding support (i.e. parental leave of at least 6 months, flexible time, and nursing care seminars).

Land rights
The company has a commitment to respect ownership and use of land and natural resources and related legitimate tenure rights.

Act ethically
The company discloses a global tax strategy an indicates an executive-level individual who is tasked with its compliance. Additionally, it has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a public policy statement committing it to respect its operations and supply chain workers’ health and safety and provides evidence of monitoring suppliers’ compliance. Furthermore, it reports the share of its employees that are covered by collective bargaining agreements and the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. It has a time-bound target to increase the female representation by 30% in its managerial positions by 2030.

Respect human rights
The company has a policy statement committing it to respect fundamental human rights, and the International Labour Organization (ILO) fundamental rights at work, in its operations and supply chain.

Additionally, the company describes various methods for identifying human rights risks and impacts and its salient human rights issues, across all its operations and suppliers. It discloses what it considers to be its salient human rights issues and categories of stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities such as its employees, outsourced manufacturing workers, and local community around its plants. Moreover, the company provides examples of its engagement with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Furthermore, it could disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it 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 an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement, beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, biodiversity, social inclusion and water; however, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, it could report consistently against 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 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the company has the chance to decrease its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and report progress against its scope 3 targets.

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 enhance its disclosures relating to soil health and agrobiodiversity.

Water withdrawal
The company currently discloses reduction targets for water consumption, absolute water use, and/or water intensity. However, it also has the potential to disclose a target for reducing water withdrawal within its own operations and provide updates on its progress. Additionally, the company can collaborate with suppliers to minimize water withdrawal.

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 adopt a nutrient profiling system that aligns with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines and to set a sales-based target to increase the percentage of more nutritious products.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of products/menus for which its front-of-pack labelling schemes have been rolled out.

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. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to implement a programme to offer healthy food options to its employees and to implement workforce nutrition programmes for its supply chain workers.

Child labour
The company prohibits child labour and conducts on-site audits through SMETA, which includes age verification. However, it has an opportunity to address cases of child labour in its operations by providing examples of remediation programs. Furthermore, it could take the opportunity to require its suppliers to implement their own age-verification systems. While the company currently discloses the results of its Sedex and SMETA audits, it could further enhance transparency by disclosing how it actively supports and empowers suppliers to prevent and address child labour.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has set up initiatives to improve the sustainability of the farms but it could demonstrate how it improves farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships. Also, it has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose a prohibition to pay recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement in its operations and supply chain. While the company conducts Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) audits for non-compliance related to recruitment fees on workers in its supply chain, it has an opportunity to disclose how it builds suppliers’ capacity to prevent and address forced labour impacts.

Land rights
The company could require its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate 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 translate its statement prohibiting bribery and corruption into a policy document and to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses that requires mandatory compliance in its business relationships’ contracts. Furthermore, it can establish a process to identify risks and impacts related to bribery and corruption.

In addition, the company could demonstrate ethical conduct by publishing a policy statement that outlines its approach to lobbying and political engagement and emphasises its non-participation in political contributions, or alternatively, states the criteria of exceptions. It could also transparently disclose all lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company states that it pays fair and reasonable wage to its employees. However, it could set a time-bound target for ensuring all workers receive a living wage and describes the living wage determination methodology in the regions where it operates. Moreover, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it has an opportunity to add a requirement for them to pay a living wage, and disclose strategies to support the payment.

The company has statements and targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment; however, it has an opportunity to translate these into a public policy document. It could also disclose the representation of women on the Board of Directors and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to establish a global system to take action to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issue in its supply chain, which goes beyond an audit and corrective action.