Constellation Brands

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

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

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

Water
The company discloses several active projects to improve water quality in the Nava area and Napa Valley River.

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

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Additionally, the company 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 committing to respecting the health and safety of workers and expects its business relationships to do the same. The company discloses both the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and the proportion for each employee category by race or ethnicity. Additionally, the company has set a target to increase the female representation in its U.S. workforce to 50% by 2026 and discloses that the current percentage of women on the board is 30.76%.

Respect human rights
The company indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible not only to all its workers but also to all external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Lobbying
The company has an opportunity disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Additionally, it 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
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, including frequency and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
While the company states that it has a materiality assessment, it has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts, including how the outcome of the process. Also, it discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Additionally, the company could disclose having persons, teams or committees who are responsible for the implementation of its sustainability strategy and 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
No evidence was found regarding the company’s efforts to avoid ecosystem conversion, including deforestation, or promote restoration. The company has an opportunity to develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

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
While the company routinely monitors species and habitat types in its Napa Valley Vineyards to promote biodiversity, it has an opportunity to assess its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its own operations and disclose the methodology and results. The company could also benefit from assessing dependencies on nature within its operations and in its upstream business relationships, providing a more comprehensive view of its environmental stewardship.

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
While the company has initiated programs like Nava Brewery’s Flora and Fauna Conservancy and restoration initiatives for the Napa Valley River, it still has opportunities to enhance its biodiversity disclosures. Specifically, it could disclose the locations within its own operations and its suppliers’ that are in or adjacent to biodiversity hotspots. Additionally, revealing the status of species found at its own and its suppliers’ locations, in accordance with international and national conservation lists, would provide a more comprehensive view of its biodiversity efforts.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
No evidence was found regarding the company’s efforts to work towards a circular economy or which organisms it exploits. The company has an opportunity to develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

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 substances and waste. It has an opportunity to 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. 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, including the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal.

Water
The company has an opportunity to disclose reductions in water withdrawal, including setting measurable targets, disclosing withdrawals in water-stressed areas, and working with suppliers to improve water withdrawal. The company also has an opportunity to disclose its processes for monitoring water quality, disclose metrics on water pollution, and set targets to reduce water pollution.

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 prohibits bribery and corruption but has not formalized this commitment in a public policy document. It could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Although the company states that it does not make political contributions in its Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, this commitment is not formalized in a public policy document. The company has the opportunity to set out a policy on its lobbying and political engagement approach, disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities, and specify that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. While the company states 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 and to disclose how it determines this wage for different regions. The company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers but has an opportunity to add a requirement for them to also pay a living wage and to disclose how it supports this payment. While committed to diversity, the company has an opportunity to explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and to disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, by significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
The company has a public policy on human rights and specific workers’ rights, but could strengthen its language for a more formal commitment and expand its scope to cover all ILO fundamental rights. It expects the same of its suppliers, yet also stops short of referencing all ILO rights. Opportunities exist for the company to outline how it identifies and addresses human rights risks in its own operations and its supply chain. Furthermore, the company could benefit from disclosing its methodology for assessing salient human rights issues, the results of its risk assessments, and any global systems in place to act on, prevent, or mitigate these issues.