The Hershey Company

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’s stakeholder engagement covers nutrition, biodiversity and social inclusion.

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. Furthermore, it reports consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which are also aligned with the 1.5 degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains by requiring suppliers to adhere to no deforestation or conversion of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas, High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests, and responsible expansion procedures.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company is actively involved in activities aimed at reducing plastic use and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. Additionally, it provides detailed related quantitative data.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company supports sugar beet farmers in improving soil health by means of its Soil and Water Outcomes Fund and the Trusted Advisor Partnership. Furthermore, it discloses related quantifiable data on its impact on soil health and agrobiodiversity.

Water withdrawal
The company showcases its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations. It also provides detailed reports on the amount of water it withdraws in water-stressed areas for its own operations.

Food safety
The company discloses that 100% of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognized food safety scheme. Additionally, the company provides evidence that by the end of 2022, 95.4% of their food suppliers will be certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Responsible marketing
The company has a responsible marketing policy tailored to children.

Child labour
The company has partnered with the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) to implement the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS). This system helps identify, track, and address child labour and covers 62% of the company’s cocoa volumes. The company is also a member of ICI’s Forced Labor Sub-Group, which works towards preventing, monitoring, identifying, and addressing forced labour in cocoa supply chains globally. It also discloses the number of children monitored and identified through CLMRS and shows a progressive trend compared to 2021.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has carried out a living income gap assessment in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, using benchmarks endorsed by the LICOP. Its supplier expectations include expectations on the traceability of cocoa and premiums paid to farmers, including the ones related to income resilience. Further, it supports the Living Income Differential in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana and requires its cocoa suppliers to comply with it too. In addition, it describes its Cocoa for Good programme and demonstrates how it involves cocoa farmers and their representative organizations in the design and implementation of living income initiatives.

Forced labour
The company has a clear policy against using recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job and does not retain workers’ personal documents or restrict their freedom of movement in its operations and supply chain. Moreover, the company discloses how it addressed issues of recruitment fees in Malaysia.

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

Living wage
The company has partnered with BSR to assess wages across its full-time employees across its global locations, and concludes that all its full time employees are paid a living wage. It also has a tool to access real-time gap analyses for part-time and full-time employees by location. Furthermore, it has partnered with the Fair Wage Network to identify wage risks and vulnerabilities in its Tier 1 supply chain in specific geographies.

Act ethically
The company discloses its global tax strategy and indicates that an executive-level individual is responsible for its execution. It also has a policy in place that prohibits bribery and corruption, and includes related clauses in contracts with direct business relationships. Stakeholders can raise related concerns and complaints via the company’s grievance mechanism. Lastly, the company is transparent about its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company commits to the health and safety of its workers and expects the same from its business partners. The company also guarantees that all its employees worldwide receive a living wage, explaining how it has been determined for its full-time employees. Additionally, it collaborates with the FairWage Network to identify and address wage issues in its supply chain, working with industry groups and NGOs to help companies understand and bridge living wage gaps.

The company also discloses the proportion of its direct workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. Additionally, it provides details about the age, gender, and race or ethnicity of its workforce, and emphasizes its commitment to gender equality by setting a target to reach 47-50% female representation across all employees globally by 2025. Lastly, it discloses that currently, women make up 45% of their board members.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and ILO core labour rights, and expects the same from its suppliers.  Moreover, the company describes its process for identifying and assessing human rights risks across its operations and supply chain, discloses what it considers to be its salient human rights issues, and provides a case study on how it has acted on a salient human rights risk issue.

Furthermore, it acknowledges the various stakeholders affected by its activities and provides examples of engaging with them. Additionally, the company has established a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to both workers and external stakeholders.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to 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 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. Furthermore, while it states the channel it uses to obtain regular feedback from its employees, it could disclose engagement channels with other stakeholders.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and social inclusion, 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 the opportunity to reduce its scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions, as well as report progress against these targets. Additionally, the company can take steps to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, with the chance to report progress against these targets as well.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its FLW reduction targets and report progress against them. It can also consider aligning its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3 (50% reduction by 2030).

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and report progress against it.

Water withdrawal
The company has the opportunity to set a time-bound target for reducing water withdrawal within its own operations and regularly report on progress towards the target. Additionally, the company can consider collaborating with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company currently provides examples of reformulated products, but there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, fat, and/or increase the presence of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in its entire product range. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company 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 proportion of more nutritious products.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to adopt front-of-pack labels or any other consumer- facing nutrition labels that support consumers with making healthier food choices. Additionally, it can 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 provide evidence of marketing activities to promote healthier and more nutritious food options in accordance with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

Child labour
The company has a monitoring system for child labour but could provide practical examples of how it supports children attending education and improves working conditions for young workers. Although the company already prohibits its suppliers from utilizing child labour, it also has the chance to mandate an age-verification system for them.

Forced labour
The company has released the Responsible Recruitment Program Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for both 2021 and 2022. However, the data shows a decline in performance compared to the previous year, indicating a lack of progress in its efforts to eliminate forced labor from its supply chain.

Land rights
The company could require 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.

Living wage
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target for paying a living wage across its direct suppliers.

Act ethically
The company could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. On lobbying and political engagement, the company has an opportunity disclose a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach, including a statement around the prohibition of political contributions, and specify whether its policy also applies to third-party lobbyists.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. Further, the company could disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its own operations, by employee category.