Aldi South Group

Lobbying
While Aldi South Group discloses some trade associations, it has an opportunity to disclose a full list of all of the trade associations it is a member of for all geographies where it operates. Similarly, while the company discloses topics it advocates, it has an opportunity to report all the advocacy activities it has undertaken in an annual review document.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
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 and reports consistently against all its targets.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company has a commitment to ensure zero conversion.

GHG emissions
Aldi South Group has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them.

Solid and air pollution
The company demonstrates that it supports systemic change within society and bans hazardous chemicals and adopt sustainable products and production processes, and has committed to the Detox Commitment reducing the production of 11 hazardous substances. It also demonstrates commitment and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. Furthermore, the company discloses related quantitative data, including the proportion of recycled plastics used in its packaging.

Water
The company works with its business relationships to improve their practices regarding access to water and sanitation.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
The company demonstrates that its human rights risks and impacts identification process includes a focus on the health of local communities. The company is committed to zero tolerance for acts of violence, threats, intimidation or judicial harassment committed against land and environmental rights defenders.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Also, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Furthermore, it has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers in its operations and supply chain and discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. It also describes how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. Furthermore, the company publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. It also describes the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and supply chain along with the results of its human rights risk assessments.  Furthermore, it provides a case study describing how it has acted on a salient human rights risk issue and engages with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities. Lastly, the company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers.

Lobbying
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to report (potential) misalignments.

Stakeholder engagement
Aldi South Group 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.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses some sustainability objectives and targets including climate, social inclusion and ecosystem conversion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, the company has an opportunity to assign decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. Additionally, it could link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Lastly, the company could improve its performance by disclosing whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company does not disclose activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains. While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it does not provide details of a plan which includes specific actions for engaging suppliers, developing alternative land-use practices, and investing in sustainable sourcing, as well as dedicated resources and KPIs for monitoring progress. Furthermore, the company is not committed to restoring ecosystems and it does not disclose details and outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects in areas affected by its own operations or by its suppliers.

GHG emissions
The company should set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. Crucially, all its scope 1, 2 and 3 targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
Aldi South Group has an opportunity to disclose assessments of its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its own operations and in its supply chain. It also has the opportunity to disclose its dependencies on nature within its own operations and upstream business relationships.

Key areas and species
The company has an opportunity to disclose locations within or adjacent to areas important for biodiversity, both in its own operations and its supplier locations. It could also disclose existing species populations existing in or adjacent to both its own and its suppliers’ locations, as well as the conservation status of species identified at its own sites according to national and international lists.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company has an opportunity to disclose its inputs according to an international standard, and to report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance. The company also has an opportunity to disclose activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and to report progress against it.

Solid and air pollution
The company should commit to avoid developing or marketing new chemicals or products with SVHC (substance of very high concern) properties, as well as work on reducing the production of hazardous waste. It reports on operational waste diverted from landfill and discloses a target to divert 90% of waste from landfill by 2030, however, it has an opportunity to disclose the breakdown of waste including plastic. The company could also report on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants and disclose time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain.

Water
The company does not disclose relevant information related to water withdrawal or water pollution in its operations or supply chains.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company does not show if it is committed to respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights or land rights of local communities.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
The company discloses that it engages in long term partnerships with local communities and delivers a sustainable impact on its local community, however, it is unclear that the company has a commitment to respect the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment of local communities, also no such commitment is found in its policy documents.While the company demonstrates that it includes a focus on human health in its human rights impact assessment reports, no evidence found that the company provides the scale (the outcome of the impact; frequency) and scope (the number of individuals who are or could be affected; frequency; geographies).

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption. Additionally, while the company states that it does not make any direct or indirect donations to political organisations, parties, or individual politicians, it could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and state that it does not make political contributions and divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Furthermore, the company could disclose targets related to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the representation of women on the highest governance body and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.
Additionally, it could describe a comprehensive process for assessing human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and its salient human rights issues beyond its supply chain. Furthermore, it could specify what it considers to be salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered and how it acts to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues through a global system in its operations beyond its supply chain.