Avril Group

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.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company has time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains, and a commitment to ensure zero conversion.

GHG emissions
The company has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions and reports progress against these targets. Additionally, the company reduces its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions compared to the previous year.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

Solid and air pollution
Avril Group demonstrates commitment and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. It discloses that it has developed a 100% recyclable product with sustainable packaging. Further, the company discloses its business unit, Lesieur’s, aim of 100% recyclable branded packaging and moving away from single-use plastic by 2030.

Water
The company discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality, including the international standards it adheres to at its sites.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the social inclusion and community impact area.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and incorporates anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships.

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. The commitment also extends to its business relationship. Furthermore, The company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, and sets a target to increase women’s proportion in its workforce to 33% in 2023.

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.

Lobbying
The company does not report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on nature-related issues, nor whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

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.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and ecosystem conversion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, while the company reports consistently against all its annual targets, it could disclose progress against all its mid-/long-term targets. Additionally, it has an opportunity to assign decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. Furthermore, 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 transparency 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. 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 discloses its intensity based target to reduce scope 3 emissions by 30%, by 2030 compared to 2019. However, intensity based targets are not considered for this indicator unless the company discloses an absolute reduction in Scope 3 emissions. The company should set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. Crucially, the company’s targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
The company aligns with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Nagoya Protocol by sourcing compounds via suppliers that adhere to these protocols. It also aims for full sustainability in palm and soy supplies by 2030. Nevertheless, there’s no disclosed evidence of a direct assessment of its own impact on nature or biodiversity. Further, the company does not disclose assessments related to its dependencies on nature, both internally and within its upstream business relationships.

Invasive species
The company has not identified any activities that could lead to the introduction of invasive alien species in its own operations.

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. Additionally, the company also has an opportunity 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 does not disclose relevant information related to pollution in its operations or supply chains.

Water
The company has an opportunity to further improve water withdrawal by setting a time-bound target, disclosing water withdrawals in water-stressed areas, and engaging with suppliers. It has an opportunity to improve on its disclosure on water pollution by disclosing water pollutant metrics and setting time-bound targets to reduce them. The company does not disclose relevant information on rights to water 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 has an opportunity to commit to respecting local communities’ right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and to zero tolerance for acts of violence, threats, intimidation or judicial harassment committed against land and environmental rights defenders. Moreover, it should track its actual or potential negative impacts on the health of local communities.

Act ethically
The company has an opportunity to outline the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. In addition, while the company has an established mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns, it could explicitly state that all stakeholder are free to raise concerns and complaints without fear of reprisals.
Moreover, the company has an opportunity to adopt a policy that defines its approach to lobbying and political engagement. It could further clarify its stance by explicitly stating its non-involvement in political contributions and divulging expenditures linked to lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose its methods for monitoring supplier health and safety performance. Additionally, although the company claims it pays a minimum wage, an opportunity exists to commit to a living wage by establishing a time-bound target. It could also elucidate its process for determining a living wage for the regions where it operates. 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 how it supports the payment.
Moreover, while the company is engaged in women’s empowerment initiatives, it could take a more explicit stance by committing to gender equality and women’s empowerment. It could further report information such as the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
While the company is a signatory to the UN Global Compact and is committed to promoting its ten core principles, there is an opportunity to formalize this commitment by disclosing a policy statement that emphasizes respect for human rights. Also, although the company is committed to upholding specific workers’ rights, it can take this commitment further by encompassing all the ILO fundamental rights throughout its operations and supply chain.
Furthermore, the company can elaborate on its process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its own operations. While the company discloses a tool for CSR assessment of its suppliers, it can specify its human rights due diligence, including the identification of human rights risks and impacts in the supply chain. This could be followed by an outline of the process used to assess and identify its salient human rights issues. Moreover, the company could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.