Vion

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of its trade organisations of which it is a member.

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 and frequencies, for each stakeholder group.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has set a target of achieving net zero emissions at all sites for scope 1 and 2 by 2040. Additionally, they have disclosed their intention of achieving net zero emissions across the entire supply chain by 2045, ultimately reaching this goal by 2050.

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 it.

Food loss and waste
The company works together with its value chain partners to proactively prevent the generation of food loss and waste (FLW).

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company discloses that it pays farmers within a short time frame to stabilise their financial situation. It also secures longer term commitments, resulting in less volatility and increased continuity for the pig farmers.

Health and safety of vulnerable groups
The company engages in activities to support and improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups, specifically third-party laborers.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Additionally, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and discloses that it has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption. Moreover, the company specifies that it does not make political contributions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respecting the health and safety of workers. Furthermore, it discloses the proportion of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. It also reports the representation of women in each employee category, and reveals a 33.33% female representation on the supervisory board.

Respect human rights
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’s activities.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company states that the board is responsible for overall management including CSR topics. However, it has an opportunity to strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by designating an individual or body to implement its sustainability strategy and by assigning decision-making and oversight to its highest governance body. While it discloses a remuneration policy related to non-financial objectives, it could further link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues.. Additionally, it could disclose if the highest governance body has expertise in its 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 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 it discloses certain sustainability objectives, including those related to climate and water, there is room to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Additionally, while the company reports against some targets, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company has an opportunity to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, report progress against these targets, as well as align these targets with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Animal welfare
While the company has a target that addresses animal welfare issues in its supply chain applicable to all species, it has an opportunity to make it applicable to all geographies and products as well.

Antibiotic use and growth promoting substances
While the company states that it has banned antibiotics critical for humans in its pork supply chain, it has an opportunity to disclose a policy on reducing the (prophylactic) use of antibiotics and growth promoting substances. It could also disclose targets to phase out their prophylactic use across all species, geographies and products, and report progress against the targets.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose its efforts to avoid ecosystem conversion, including deforestation or restoration. The company could develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

Food loss and waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose its food loss and waste (FLW) reduction targets and report progress against these targets. It also has a chance to align its FLW reduction goal with SDG12.3, which aims for a 50% reduction 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 the progress made towards achieving this target.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to water use and withdrawal.

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 provides examples of reformulated products. 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 establish nutrition criteria 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 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 currently discloses that all but one of its production sites are certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme. However, there is potential for the company to extend these certifications to cover 100% of its own operations. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose the percentage of its food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Child labour
The company has an opportunity to disclose a commitment to prohibit child labour in its supply chain and an age-verification system for its value chain. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent child labour impacts.

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 such as a prohibition to pay recruitment fees, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds 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.

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. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships.

Furthermore, while the company states that it does not support political candidates or parties, it has an opportunity to outline its lobbying approach in a policy statement and divulge its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement expecting its suppliers to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers, and reveal how it monitors supplier health and safety performance. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or mention that it has achieved this goal. The company could also elaborate on the methods used to determine a living wage for its operational regions, and reveal how it supports the payment of a living wage by its suppliers.

Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to publicly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. While the company sets a target to achieve a reasonable gender balance in the Supervisory Board, it has an opportunity to make this target time-bound. Moreover, there is an opportunity for the company to report information, including the ratio of women’s basic salary and remuneration to men’s.

Respect human rights
The company states that it complies with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as well as all internal standards, legislation, and regulations in the countries where it operates. However, it has an opportunity to include these statements in a formal policy document. Additionally, while the company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect specific workers’ rights, it could reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain.

Furthermore, while the company conducts a materiality assessment to identify the main risks to the business, it has an opportunity to elaborate on how it identifies human rights risks and impacts within its operations and supply chain. The company could also provide more detail on its process for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues. Moreover, the company could disclose a global system to address, prevent, or mitigate its salient human rights issues.