TreeHouse Foods

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 announced its goal to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 5% by 2025. It also provides regular progress reports regarding these targets. This includes actively taking steps to decrease its scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Food loss and waste
The company not only discloses its FLW reduction targets but also reports progress against those targets. These FLW reduction targets are in line with the SDG 12.3 goal of achieving a 50% reduction by 2030.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates its commitment to reducing plastic use and transitioning towards sustainable packaging through their policies and participation in related activities. They also disclose quantitative data regarding their efforts in reducing plastic use and adopting sustainable packaging.

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 It also reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Food safety
The company discloses that 97% of food suppliers are certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Forced labour
The company prohibits the payment of any recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job. It also does not retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement in its supply chain.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Additionally, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Moreover, the company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a policy statement affirming its commitment to respect the health and safety of workers, and extending this expectation to its business relationships. The company further discloses how it monitors supplier health and safety performance. Moreover, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, and reveals that its board is 40% women.

Respect human rights
The company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in nature-related objectives and social issues. Furthermore, 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.

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 and to describe its process for engaging with stakeholder groups, beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and water, 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 potential to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. While the company claims to collaborate with suppliers to conduct a scope 3 emissions assessment and establish a reduction goal by 2025, no evidence found that the company has targets to reduce scope 3 emissions. It is important for the company to set targets for reducing scope 3 emissions, as this would enable them 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.

Antibiotic use and growth promoting substances
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the prophylactic use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances. It could also disclose targets to phase out the use of antibiotics across all species, geographies and products and report progress against them.

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.

Clear and transparent labelling
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it provides nutritional information on its products and how it supports consumers with making healthy food choices through its labelling schemes.

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.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment to responsible marketing and its marketing activities to promote healthy food options.

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. While the company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour, it could require them to have an age-verification system in place.

Forced labour
For its operations, the company has an opportunity to prohibit paying recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job, retaining workers’ personal documents or restricting workers’ freedom of movement. Furthermore, it could indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company has an opportunity to recognise and assess the health and safety risks to vulnerable groups, such as migrant and temporary labourers, women and young farmers. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups.

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 describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts. While the company has a mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns without fear of reprisals, the company could clarify if this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders. Furthermore, while the company states that it does not support political parties or candidates for public office, nor does it reimburse employees for political contributions, it could disclose a policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions, and divulge how much it spends on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it offers competitive compensation and benefits to its employees, and has set expectations regarding wages paid by its suppliers, there is an opportunity for a stronger commitment to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target, requiring suppliers to do the same, and explaining the support they provide for this payment. The company could also disclose its methodology for determining a living wage.

Moreover, although the company has initiatives in place for gender equality and women’s empowerment, it has an opportunity to explicitly commit to these goals. Relatedly, it could disclose time-bound targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and enhance transparency by disclosing information on the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
While the company has a policy statement committing it to respect human rights, it can use stronger language to turn it into a formal commitment. Additionally, the company can go beyond committing to specific human rights and reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain. Furthermore, although the company mentions processes for identifying human rights violations and impacts across its operations and supply chain, it has the opportunity to provide a comprehensive description of this process. It could also outline its process for assessing and identifying the human rights issues it considers most significant. Moreover, the company could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate these issues.