Essity

Lobbying
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts in relation to its sustainability strategy.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains.
The company is committed to restoring ecosystems.

GHG emissions
The company has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.

Solid and air pollution
The company reports on the proportion of hazardous waste treated to reduce pollution compared to total waste, hazardous waste diverted from disposal and directed to disposal. Also, it discloses the specific methods used for treating and disposing of each waste type, including landfill, incineration, and recycling.

Water
The company demonstrates it is reducing water withdrawal in its own operations and the proportion of water withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. The company reports a decrease in water pollution and discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality. The company has targets to reduce water pollution and reports progress against them.

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

Act ethically
The company maintains a publicly available policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, outlining stringent compliance to legal standards globally. It has set up a comprehensive program for external evaluations and audits of corruption-related risks, reporting that 98% of its production facilities were assessed as low to medium risk for corruption in the 2022 Sedex evaluation. A strict code of conduct for suppliers enforces anti-corruption laws and allows for termination of contracts in cases of compliance breaches. Additionally, the company provides a reporting mechanism accessible via a website, enabling stakeholders to raise concerns anonymously or identified, ensuring protection against reprisals. The company adheres to political neutrality, refraining from financial contributions to political parties or candidates, and engages in policy debates relevant to its business interests through lobbying.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has committed to the health and safety of workers with a publicly available policy and expects the same commitment from its business relationships. It requires suppliers to ensure a safe, hygienic, and healthy working environment, maintain an ISO 45001-certified Health and Safety Management System, and undergo audits by the company, including periodic and immediate assessments. Suppliers are also required to join and share data via the Sedex platform. The company aims to achieve a gender distribution of 40-60% at management levels by 2025 and reports that 38.46% of its board members are female.

Respect human rights
Essity employs a detailed human rights due diligence process, conducting group-level human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) every third year, complemented by local assessments in intervening years focused on identified risks. The company utilises tools like the UN Global Compact self-assessment and Sedex for supplier evaluations, ensuring compliance with human rights standards. Essity’s approach includes rigorous supplier screening, adherence to international human rights frameworks, and specific policies against forced and child labour. Additionally, the company discloses its salient human rights risks and the mitigation plans and remediation actions for its salient human right issues.

Lobbying
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets, as well as potential misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Stakeholder engagement
The company does not disclose how it engages with stakeholders, nor the issues it raises during such activities.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
While the company has set some targets, it does not disclose group-wide targets on all key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain, nor does it report against all of its targets. No evidence was found that the company links performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. The company does not disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise regarding nature-related topics.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company lacks a commitment to ensuring zero conversion and does not have time-bound targets for achieving conversion-free supply chains. Additionally, it does not disclose details or outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects in areas affected by its own operations or by its suppliers.

GHG emissions
The company has an opportunity to reduce its scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, report against its targets, and align its targets to a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
The company has not holistically assessed its impacts or how it depends on nature, including biodiversity. It has an opportunity to start such an assessment across its value chains, focused on quantification of its impacts or dependencies.

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 does not disclose key species or areas important for biodiversity affected by its operations or suppliers. It has an opportunity to increase its transparency.

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 is not reducing the production of hazardous substances. The company discloses that it sold no products containing substances on the REACH SVHC candidate list. However, no evidence found that the company has a commitment to not developing or marketing new chemicals or products with (substance of very high concern) SVHC properties. Additionally, it is not reducing the production of hazardous waste. While the company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and the use of sustainable packaging, it does not report on the amount of plastic waste generated or the proportions directed to or diverted from disposal. Furthermore, the company does not report time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain.

Water
The company does not disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations, nor engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal. The company does not report targets to reduce water pollution. The company has an opportunity to publicly commit to the right to water and to provide its processes for implementing preventive and corrective action plans for identified specific risks to the right to water and sanitation in its own operations.

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 require third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company provides some injury and incident rates but does not disclose the types of work-related injuries or illnesses. It states compliance with national wage laws but does not ensure these wages provide a decent living standard nor does it show support for living wages in its supply chain. Despite committing to gender equality initiatives, there is no broad public commitment to women’s empowerment. The company has an opportunity to expand its injury and illness reporting, detail its strategy for ensuring and supporting living wages, and publicly commit to comprehensive women’s empowerment, including transparent targets for management diversity and gender pay equity.

Respect human rights
The company has a public policy statement on human rights but its language, including “in accordance with” and “support,” does not indicate a robust commitment. Additionally, it is unclear whether the company’s expectations of suppliers regarding the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining are universally applicable, as they are framed within the context of compliance with international and national conventions. The company has an opportunity to strengthen its human rights commitments through clearer and more definitive policy language and by ensuring that its expectations of business relationships are consistent across all locations and contexts.