Symrise

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member.

Stakeholder engagement
The company’s stakeholder 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 has disclosed its target to reduce scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2028. These emissions targets are aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, the company is working on reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and the scope 3 emissions targets are also aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Food loss and waste
The company is working towards reducing FLW (food loss and waste) in alignment with SDG 12.3, which aims to achieve a 50% reduction by 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Water withdrawal
The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. It also engages with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has disclosed that it is currently working on nutrition solutions, specifically focused on naturally sourced vitamins and minerals. Additionally, it is also developing taste optimization solutions for products that are low in sugar, sodium, or fat.

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.

Land rights
The company is dedicated to respecting land ownership, the use of natural resources, and related legitimate tenure rights. When acquiring or leasing land, or making other arrangements, the company discloses its processes for identifying legitimate tenure rights holders and negotiates with them to ensure fair compensation. It also requires its business relationships to have a similar process in place, giving special consideration to vulnerable or marginalized tenure rights holders and providing appropriate compensation through negotiations.

Act ethically
The company publicly commits to safeguarding personal data, and divulges its global tax strategy. Additionally, it enforces a policy that forbids 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 provides a publicly available policy statement where it commits to prioritizing worker health and safety. This commitment is also extended to its business relationships. Additionally, the company outlines its method for monitoring supplier compliance.

Furthermore, the company discloses the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. It also explains its efforts in supporting business relationships regarding freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Moreover, the company reveals the distribution of its workforce across various employee categories in terms of age, gender, and race or ethnicity. Furthermore, the company is a signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles, demonstrating its dedication to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The company reports a 33% representation of women on the board, and establishes goals to achieve 30% and 45% representation of women in the first and second management levels respectively, by 2025.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO fundamental rights at work across its operations and supply chain. Furthermore, the company indicates the presence of a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to climate and ESG performance but can further link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. While stating that the board of directors has the expertise in nutrition, 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 climate, water, soil health, social inclusion, ecosystem conversion and biodiversity.

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 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 discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to climate, water, and social inclusion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While it reports on some of its targets, including those related to climate, water, and social inclusion, it could report consistently across all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to decrease its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and should also report the progress it has made in achieving these targets. While the company discloses its goal of reducing scope 3 GHG emissions related to purchased goods and services by 30%, there is no evidence to suggest that the company has set a target to decrease its overall scope 3 emissions.

Food loss and waste
Although the company discloses its FLW reduction target(s), it fails to measure progress towards achieving these target(s).

Plastic use and packaging waste
While the company describes its activities to reduce plastic use and transition towards sustainable packaging, it has an opportunity to disclose the associated quantitative data.

Water withdrawal
The company has the opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. Additionally, the company can disclose a time-bound target for reducing water withdrawal and provide regular progress reports on this target.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment and provide evidence of how its activities contribute to addressing malnutrition and food insecurity.

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. Additionally, the company can disclose the percentage of its food suppliers that are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

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

Forced labour
For its operations, 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 restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Moreover, it could indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Act ethically
The company could detail its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities relating to its own operations. Furthermore, while the company possesses a mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns, it could clarify whether this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders.

Additionally, although the company presents its political engagement approach in a public policy statement, it could further develop a policy specifically outlining its stance on lobbying. Moreover, while it asserts its non-involvement in political contributions in its Sustainability Record, there is an opportunity to formalise this commitment in a public policy document. The company could also enhance transparency by disclosing its expenditures related to lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
Although the company states that it pays wages exceeding the minimum standard stipulated by local law, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. Additionally. it could also reveal its methods for determining living wage standards in its operational regions. Relatedly, 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 detail its mechanism for supporting such payments.

Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to enhance transparency by disclose data such as the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
While the company conducts audits and materiality assessments, there is an opportunity to elaborate on its process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and supply chain. It could also outline the process for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues. Additionally, although it discloses its processes to mitigate human rights issues, it could disclose a global system to act on all its salient human rights issues in all its activities, and disclose how the system applies to its supply chain.