Tyson Foods

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations. It has the opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions in which it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its regular and ongoing stakeholder engagement activities as well as the engagement channels, for each stakeholder group. It could further clarify whether the topics listed under area of focus are raised by the stakeholders.

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. Priority issues are identified through an extensive materiality assessment, where it engages a broad group of stakeholders.

Animal welfare
The company provides evidence of third-party certifications and audits for animal welfare. Each of its plants has an animal welfare committee that conducts monthly assessments and discusses performance. Additionally, it discloses certifications for beef, poultry, and pork at various locations.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains. Suppliers of palm oil are required comply with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil Supply Chain Certification standard audit, while suppliers of pulp, paper and packaging are asked to certify to the Sustainable Forest Initiative, Forest Stewardship Council and other standards.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has policies and engages in activities to reduce plastic use and transition to sustainable packaging. This includes implementing sustainable packaging solutions for several products in 2021 and using How2Recycle logos and labels in the packaging of most products.

Water withdrawal
The company reports that it withdraws between 11-25% of the water for its own operations in water-stressed areas.

Food safety
The company offers evidence that all of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognized food safety scheme. Additionally, it discloses that 97.3% of their food suppliers are also certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company works directly with independent farmers, ranchers and producers on a contractual basis and describes models it has created to insulate the farmer from the risk of changing market prices for chicken and feed ingredients.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company recognizes that drivers are susceptible to health and safety risks in its line of work and openly acknowledges these associated risks.

Act ethically
The company maintains a policy that prohibits bribery and corruption, and integrates anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses into contracts with direct business relationships. Additionally, the company offers a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption. Furthermore, the company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement within a policy statement.

Provide and promote decent work
The company presents a public policy statement in which it pledges to uphold worker health and safety. This commitment extends to its business relationships. Furthermore, the company discloses the distribution of its workforce across various employee categories by age group and gender. Additionally, it reports a 30.76% representation of women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain. Moreover, the company indicates it has 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 briefly discloses a remuneration policy related to social issues but could further link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and specific social issues. Moreover, could 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 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.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and nutrition. However, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While it reports against some targets including climate and soil health, it could report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has the opportunity to align its scope 1 and 2 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory. It can also reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and disclose time-bound targets for their reduction, reporting progress accordingly. Aligning scope 3 emissions targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory is also an opportunity for the company.

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 targets to phase out the prophylactic use of antibiotics across all species, geographies and products, and report progress against them.

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 food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report progress towards achieving these targets. Additionally, the company has the chance to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for 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.

Water withdrawal
The company currently provides information on the total volume of water used for a portion of its operation. However, there is room for improvement in demonstrating a decrease in water usage across all aspects of its operations. To achieve this, the company can set a specific target to reduce water consumption within a defined timeframe and regularly report on its progress towards achieving this target. Additionally, the company has the opportunity to collaborate with its suppliers to implement measures that also reduce water usage.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to shift its focus from philanthropic to commercial activities to improve the accessibility of nutritious foods, especially for vulnerable groups. It can also implement commercial activities to improve the affordability of nutritious foods. Moreover, the company has an opportunity to set targets to improve both the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods with a particular focus on vulnerable groups via its commercial activities.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has set a target to achieve 75% of its products in compliance with the 2021 FDA sodium guardrails by 2030. However, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the presence of positive nutrients in its entire portfolio. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to adopt a nutrient profiling system and set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products, aligning with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

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.

Child labour
The company could provide 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. While the company has in place expectations on the prohibition of child labour for its suppliers, it could disclose related policy requirements including the use of an age verification system for the workers recruited.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Forced labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain. Specifically, it could prohibit the payment of recruitment fees, the retention of workers’ personal documents, and the restriction of workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to describe the process it employs to identify bribery and corruption risks and impacts within its own operations. Furthermore, while the company states that it allows political contribution aligned with the company’s objective and in compliance with relevant laws, there is a potential to disclose the approving entity for political contributions. It could also clarify whether such contributions are made only by exception and disclose the criteria guiding these exceptions. Moreover, although the company discloses some information regarding its federal lobbying expenses and corporate contributions, it could report lobbying expenditures in all locations where it carries out lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company discloses that it audits its suppliers, it could disclose how it monitors their health and safety performance. In addition, despite the company stating that it pays minimum wage to its employees, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. It could also elaborate on its methods to determine a living wage for its operational regions. Relatedly, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it could add a requirement for them to pay a living wage, and disclose its mechanism for supporting this payment.

Moreover, although the company is committed to diversity, it could explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Transparency may be heightened by reporting data such as the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men. Additionally, while reporting a 28% women representation in management for FY2021, it can introduce new time-bound targets.

Respect human rights
While the company conducts materiality risk assessments to identify risks to business, it has an opportunity to disclose how it identifies human rights risks and impacts across its operations and supply chain. In addition, the company could elaborate on the process for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues. Moreover, while the company discloses that it undertakes measures to prevent and mitigate risks, it could disclose a global system to act on all its salient human rights issues and explain how the system applies to its supply chain.