FCF Co., Ltd.

Lobbying
FCF discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
FCF discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, its stakeholder engagement encompasses nature, including biodiversity, nutrition and social issues.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
FCF 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.

Solid and air pollution
The company engages in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Water
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations.

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

Act ethically
FCF has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
FCF has a publicly available statement of policy in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of its workers, and extends the same expectation to its business relationships. Moreover, the company discloses a commitment to gender equality and women empowerment, as well as the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Lobbying
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 has an opportunity to report (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company has an opportunity to disclose group wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain and report consistently against all its targets. Also, it could link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Furthermore, 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. It 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 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. Crucially, it needs to reduce its scope 1,2 and 3 emissions and its targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
The company 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.

Invasive species
No evidence was found that the company identifies the activities that could lead to the introduction of IAS in its own operations or in its value chain.

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 does not disclose its inputs, including its material footprint. The company does not report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance.

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. The company could also provide quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging, including the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal.

Water
The company has an opportunity to further reduce water withdrawal by setting targets, engaging with suppliers, and disclosing withdrawals in water-stressed areas. The company also does not disclose relevant information on water pollution nor a commitment to respect the right to water. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose 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 mentions Indigenous Peoples’ rights but does not show a commitment to respecting these rights. There are no references provided to the relevant part(s) of ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Additionally, the company fails to disclose its processes for identifying and recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples when its operations may impact these rights. The company also does not describe how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior, and informed consent.

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 a process for identifying bribery and corruption but has an opportunity disclose comprehensively details of this process. Relatedly, it has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach. It could further disclose a publicly available policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions, and divulge its expenditures on lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose its supplier health and safety monitoring process. Additionally, while the company asserts adherence to local wage laws and commits to providing a living wage to its workers, there is room to establish time-bound target for achieving this wage and clarify the determination of living wage in each region. Likewise, while it expects its supplier to also adhere to local wage laws, it can extend the expectation of a living wage to suppliers and detail its support in implementing this payment.

Furthermore, while the company is dedicated to diversity and equal employment opportunities, it could explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. This includes setting related time-bound targets, as well as disclosing data on women’s representation on the board and the ratio of women’s basic salary and remuneration compared to men’s.

Respect human rights
While the company commits to uphold specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain, an opportunity exists to declare a policy statement affirming its commitment to human rights, and reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, although the company identifies human rights concerns within its supply chain and engages with relevant stakeholders, there is an opportunity to provide a comprehensive account of its procedure for identifying human rights risks and assessing their impacts across all activities and the supply chain. Further elaboration on how it evaluates and identifies salient human rights issues is also warranted. Furthermore, as the company conducts third-party audits and presents evidence of its management of various human rights matters, there is a potential to unveil a global system for addressing all its salient human rights issues throughout all activities.