Tesco

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company provides evidence of linking performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses how it engages with stakeholders, the issues raised during such activities, and the specific outcomes of its stakeholder engagement. Moreover, its 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 discloses a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 85% by 2030, using 2015/16 as the base year. Additionally, the company aims to become carbon neutral across its group operations by 2035. Further, it has set a time-bound target to reduce its scope 3 GHG emissions and achieve net zero emissions across its value chain by 2050. The company shows leadership by aligning all these targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory, showing its commitment to addressing climate change, while progress updates regarding these targets and emission reductions are regularly reported.

Animal welfare
The company discloses evidence of animal welfare third-party certifications or audits. It also discloses a target that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain, and reports progress against the target. Moreover, the company’s policy addresses all the key animal welfare issues for each species, geographies and products.

Food loss and waste
Between 2021 and 2022, the company experienced a significant decrease in the amount of food loss and waste (FLW) it generated. The company not only discloses its FLW reduction targets but also provides regular reports on its progress towards meeting those targets.The company’s FLW reduction targets are in line with Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which aims to achieve a 50% reduction in FLW by 2030. To tackle the issue, the company collaborates with its value chain partners to implement strategies that prevent the generation of FLW.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has a 4Rs strategy and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. Also, the company discloses quantitative data with regards to plastic use reduction and the use of sustainable packaging.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company states that it tracks the healthiness of its products and ranges using the Tesco Health Score, which is a measure based on the UK Government’s nutrient profiling model. Furthermore, the company reformulates its products by reducing nutrients of concern, such as calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar, and salt, and/or increasing positive nutrients and ingredients, such as fiber, plant-based protein, fruit, and vegetables. The company demonstrates its use of the UK Government’s Nutrient Profiling model for Tesco UK, ROI, and CE.

The company discloses its target to increase the sales of healthy products as a proportion of total sales, aiming for 65% by 2025 in the UK and ROI, and 53% in CE by 2027. Moreover, it reports progress against these targets, achieving 60% in the UK and ROI and 49% in CE for FY 2022/23.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company discloses it has adopted the UK Government’s Traffic Light front-of-pack labelling system.

Responsible marketing
The company introduced in-aisle Better Baskets zones to promote healthier choices and implemented ‘Fresh First’ fruit and vegetable displays in 21 stores.

Forced labour
The company has policies in place to ensure fair treatment of workers in its operations and supply chain. These policies include a clear prohibition on the use of recruitment fees or related expenses to secure employment, as well as the retention of workers’ personal documents or restriction of their freedom of movement. Furthermore, the company has made it mandatory for all primary food sites and poultry sites at tier 1 and below to adopt the Employer Pays Principle and undergo assessments conducted by Issara Institute. As part of its commitment to transparency, the company regularly reports on the findings and corrective actions from both worker-led assessments conducted by Issara and data collected directly from its suppliers on the issue of recruitment fees.

Living wage
The company describes its living wage gap analysis in its banana supply chain. It has worked alongside industry partners such as the World Banana Forum and IDH to establish living wage benchmarks in all major banana-producing countries and collaborated with its suppliers to collect information on the cash wages, bonuses and benefits-in-kind. Further, it discloses that half of its banana suppliers already pay a living wage to all workers, and for the remaining suppliers, living wage gaps were found to range between 2% and 18%.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data, and has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption as well as a global tax strategy. It also discloses that its tax approach is reviewed on an annual basis by the Board and its adherence to them is monitored by the Chief Financial Officer and the Group Tax Director.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers in its own operations and supply chain. Also, it describes how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. Moreover, it does not require workers to work more than the regular and overtime hours and places equivalent expectations on its suppliers. Further, it discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and its approach to supporting the practices of its business relationships in relation to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
Furthermore, the company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by gender and race or ethnicity. It publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses a target to improve female representation at the executive level. Also, it discloses that 38.46% of its Board members are women.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and ILO core labour rights in its operations and supply chain. It describes the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and supply chain, as well as assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Additionally, it has a global system to take action to prevent, mitigate or remediate salient human rights issues, including a description of how it applies to its supply chain.
Moreover, the company discloses categories of stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities, and demonstrates how it engages with them. It also indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
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 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.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to climate, ecosystem conversion, 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, food waste, animal welfare, and social inclusion, it could report consistently across all its targets.

Animal welfare
The company has an opportunity to set animal welfare targets applicable to all species, geographies and products.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some evidence of addressing conversion in its palm oil and soy supply chain. However, this does not guarantee deforestation and conversion-free (DCF)-aligned practices. The company has an opportunity to set a time-bound DCF target that covers all its high-risk commodities.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal in its own operations and supply chains.

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

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to disclose a responsible marketing policy specifically tailored to children that is aligned with international codes and guidelines and applicable across all media channels.

Child labour
The company supports its suppliers to comply with the Base Code of the ETI. Further, it discloses that all primary sites in high-risk countries require a Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit and its human rights impact assessment in Vietnam includes age verification processes. However, it has an opportunity to disclose child labour requirements in its contractual agreement with suppliers as a prohibition of child labour and the use of an age-verification system for the workers recruited. Moreover, it could disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations and indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to provide an analysis of trends demonstrating progress in relation to eliminating forced labour from its supply chain.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company acknowledges that women and migrant workers are particularly susceptible to abuse and exploitation. However, it also has the chance to identify other vulnerable groups in terms of health and safety and understand the risks they encounter.

Living wage
The company has announced a joint commitment with UK retailers to close the living wage gap in international banana supply chains by 2027. However, it has an opportunity to expand this target to include all of its direct suppliers.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with business relationships, describe its process for identifying bribery and corruption, and indicate the existence of a grievance mechanism through which stakeholders can file related complaints. Although the company outlines its approach to political engagement in its Code of Business Conduct and Guidance for Political Engagement, it has an opportunity to formalise its approach to lobbying too in a public policy document. Furthermore, it could also disclose that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy as well as its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. It could also disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or disclose that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage, and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates.