Viterra

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and states the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, the company’s stakeholder engagement covers nature, nutrition, and social issues.

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 discloses its target to achieve carbon net zero for its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2050, against a baseline year of 2022.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has targets to end deforestation and conversion for soy from South America and palm oil globally by the end of 2025.

Water withdrawal
The company actively showcases its commitment to reducing water withdrawal in its own operations. Additionally, it reports the precise amount of water withdrawn for its own activities, particularly in regions or areas facing water stress.

No leading practices were identified in the nutrition area.

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

Act ethically
The company places a strong emphasis on data protection and transparency, with a public commitment and a disclosed privacy statement regarding personal data usage. Furthermore, the company operates with integrity, showcasing a global tax strategy and maintaining a robust anti-bribery and anti-corruption policy. It extends this commitment by including anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in contracts with direct business relationships. The company ensures accessibility for stakeholders to report concerns related to bribery and corruption through a user-friendly website and email channel, offering anonymity if desired. Moreover, it upholds a transparent approach to political engagement by explicitly stating its non-participation in political contributions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company publicly pledges to prioritize worker health and safety in its policy statement. It extends this commitment to its business relationships, emphasizing the importance of worker well-being across its network. Notably, 76% of its total direct operations workforce benefits from collective bargaining agreements, underscoring a commitment to fair labor practices. Additionally, the company maintains transparency by disclosing the proportion of women in its direct operations workforce across various employee categories, promoting gender equality.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting human rights. Additionally, the company’s policy statement also ensures the commitment to respect ILO core labour rights. Furthermore, the company expects its suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights, as stated in their publicly available policy statement.

To facilitate reporting grievances, the company discloses a website and an email address. When visiting their website, it is evident that they have an open channel for anyone to make a report. Moreover, the company provides the option for the complainant to either remain anonymous or identify themselves when submitting a report.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company discloses a remuneration policy related to climate but can further link this policy to improvement in 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 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
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and ecosystem conversion, 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 an opportunity to reduce its absolute scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. While it discloses that it has achieved a 10% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity, its scope 1 and 2 emissions actually increased compared to its new 2022 baseline data. On a positive note, the company has set a scope 1 and 2 emission reduction target that is aligned with a well below 2ºC pathway, but there is potential for its targets to be aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory. Additionally, the company has room for improvement in reducing its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and reporting progress on these targets and align them with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company has an opportunity to disclose activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Fertiliser and pesticide use
The company has an opportunity to disclose targets to optimise the use of fertilizers and minimise the use of pesticides in its production and/or sourcing practices, and report progress against the targets.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to enhance its disclosures relating to soil health and agrobiodiversity.

Water withdrawal
The company currently has an intensity-based target in place to decrease water withdrawal and provides updates on its progress. However, there is room for improvement by establishing an absolute target and tracking progress accordingly. Additionally, the company should consider collaborating with suppliers to actively reduce water withdrawal.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to demonstrate how it engages in nutrition-sensitive activities aimed at enhancing the nutritional quality and variety of foods.

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. Additionally, the company can also disclose the percentage of its food suppliers who are certified under a GFSI-recognized food safety scheme.

Workforce nutrition
The company has health and wellbeing promotion programs for its employees; however, there is an opportunity to enhance the program by incorporating nutrition-focused health checks or nutrition education and to disclose evidence of other workforce nutrition programmes.

Child labour
The company could provide examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations. 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. Moreover, it regularly procures certified products and its certification portfolio includes Cotton Made in Africa (CMiA) and discloses general steps it undertakes when suppliers are not in line with the suppliers’s code of conduct. However, it could demonstrate how it enhances suppliers’ capacity 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 commodities and regions. Also, it could adopt procurement practices and develop supply chain relationships that improve farmers’ income resilience.

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. Furthermore, it could provide evidence of support activities that improve the health and safety of vulnerable groups.

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 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 the opportunity to establish a clear policy outlining its approach to lobbying and political engagement. As part of this, the company could consider disclosing its expenditures related to lobbying activities. Additionally, the company could require third-party lobbyists to adhere to the company’s established lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company can enhance transparency by revealing its supplier health and safety monitoring process. While it currently pays minimum wages, committing to a time-bound target for a living wage would demonstrate dedication to fair compensation. Providing insight into how it defines a living wage across regions and requiring the same of its suppliers, while revealing support mechanisms, would promote equitable pay.

Furthermore, a public commitment to gender equality with specific time-bound goals would foster empowerment. The company could also acknowledge the need for greater female representation on the board and share efforts to achieve at least 30% women. Lastly, disclosing salary ratios for gender equity in various employee categories and significant locations would provide a comprehensive view of its gender pay practices.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to describe its process for identifying and assessing human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities. This should cover both its own operations and its supply chain. Additionally, the company could provide details on how it determines which human rights issues are most significant (salient) to its operations. Furthermore, disclosing the results of its human rights risk assessment would be beneficial. Finally, the company could also share information about a global system in place to address, prevent, or mitigate these salient human rights issues.