Sysco

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of its American trade associations. It has however an opportunity to provide a list for all geographies.

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

Sustainable development strategy
The company reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company discloses that by 2030, it reduces its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 27.5% from a CY2019 base year.

Animal welfare
The company discloses evidence 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.

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The company reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.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.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that 100% of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognised food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
The company has implemented nutrition education within its health and wellness programme.

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

Land rights
The company requires its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rights holders paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rights holders, and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Act ethically
The company openly commits to safeguarding personal data and maintains a policy against bribery and corruption. It reinforces its stance by integrating anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses into contracts with direct business relationships. Additionally, the company establishes a grievance mechanism to facilitate stakeholders in voicing concerns and lodging complaints related to bribery and corruption matters.

Provide and promote decent work
The company’s policy statement is publicly accessible, outlining the expectation for its business relationships to prioritize worker health and safety. It also provides insight into how the company monitors the health and safety performance of these relationships.

Moreover, the company transparently discloses the percentage of women within its total direct operations workforce across various employee categories, alongside similar data for racial and ethnic representation. Additionally, the company reveals a goal to increase female and ethnic representation in its U.S. workforce by 62% by 2025, a target that has already been successfully attained.

Respect human rights
The company’s commitment to human rights and ILO core labor rights is evident through its publicly accessible policy statement. Furthermore, the company ensures accessibility to its human rights grievance mechanism for both its workers and external stakeholders who could be adversely affected by its operations.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to ESG metrics but could further link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. While the company states that the board of directors has expertise in sustainability, it has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics including nutrition, 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 during its stakeholder engagement activities.

Sustainable development strategy
The company states that it has a materiality assessment but could further disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how external stakeholders are involved in the process. While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, social inclusion, nutrition, and ecosystem conversion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. According to the company’s disclosure, they have achieved 92.64% of their target in relation to the base year. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the company is reporting progress on their scope 1 and 2 emissions targets compared to the previous year. Furthermore, the company’s scope 1 and 2 emissions targets could potentially be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, the company has the opportunity to lower its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. They plan to collaborate with suppliers who represent 67% of their Scope 3 emissions in order to establish science-based targets by 2026. Nevertheless, there is no information available to indicate that the company has set targets to reduce their scope 3 emissions. Moreover, the company has the chance to report progress on their scope 3 targets. It is also possible for the company’s scope 3 emissions targets to align 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.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities and time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains and specify the certification models used to guarantee that it is DCF-aligned.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report on its progress towards achieving these targets. Additionally, the company can align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims to achieve a 50% reduction in FLW by 2030.

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.

Protein diversification
The company has an opportunity to set a sales-based target to increase alternative proteins across its portfolio, as well as report progress against this target.

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 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.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of its food suppliers that are certified to a food safety scheme recognized by GFSI.

Workforce nutrition
The company has an opportunity to disclose evidence of other workforce nutrition programmes, such as workplace breastfeeding support and healthy food offerings.

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

Forced labour
Foreign or migrant workers will be able to keep their own passports and shall not be required to pay recruitment fees. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose similar commitments for all types of workers within its supply chain and operations. It could also indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

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.

Act ethically
The company presents its approach to lobbying and political engagement on its website, but there’s a chance to solidify this strategy by formalizing it through a public policy document.

While the company provides information about its lobbying expenditures in the US, extending this disclosure to all locations where lobbying activities are conducted would enhance transparency. Additionally, the company could openly state that it mandates third-party lobbyists to adhere to its established lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company currently has a publicly available policy underscoring the importance of health and safety, it could adopt more robust language to reinforce its unwavering commitment to these aspects.

The company acknowledges supporting the fundamental human right to fair wages and benefits in line with local laws, while also expecting suppliers to adhere to legal employment and labor requirements, including minimum wage standards. However, there’s potential for the company to provide clarity on whether these wages suffice to maintain a decent standard of living for employees and their families. Furthermore, the company could consider establishing a time-bound goal for achieving a living wage for all workers.

While the company discloses the percentage of women on its board, it could aspire to increase this representation to at least 30%.

Respect human rights
While the company’s existing policy statement commits to certain workers’ rights, there’s room to strengthen its commitment by explicitly referencing all fundamental rights at work according to the ILO.

Moreover, the company has an opportunity to outline its approach for identifying human rights risks and their impacts in specific locations or activities, encompassing both its internal operations and its supply chain. Additionally, disclosing a comprehensive global framework aimed at addressing, preventing, or mitigating its identified significant human rights issues would enhance transparency and accountability.