ICA Gruppen

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.

GHG emissions
The company has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against its scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Solid and air pollution
The company demonstrates commitment, partakes in activities, and discloses quantitative data related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

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

Act ethically
The company has a disclosed global tax strategy for which the Board, CEO, CFO, and the Head of Treasury & Tax are accountable. It also reports income tax payments for all its tax jurisdictions and has a policy in place that prohibits 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 its workers. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group and also the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Respect human rights
The company states that it has a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to all workers and 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 does not disclose how it engages with stakeholders, nor the issues it raises during such activities.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate. However, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, although the company assigns decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to senior management, it could assign decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. Additionally, while the company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability, it has an opportunity to link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Lastly, it 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
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
Crucially, the company needs to reduce its scope 3 emissions and report against its scope 3 targets. Additionally, all its emission reduction targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
While the company recognizes that its largest impact on biodiversity is through food production and has considered risks like deforestation and overfishing in its criteria for risk ingredients, it still has the opportunity to identify and assess its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, and disclose the methodology and results of these assessments within its own operations. The company also has yet to disclose assessments regarding its impacts on nature in its supply chain, or its dependencies on nature within its own operations and 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. 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 does not disclose relevant information related to pollution in its operations or supply chains.

Water
The company does not disclose relevant information related 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 a system for identifying bribery and corruption but could benefit from disclosing more details about it. Adding anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses to contracts with business partners is another opportunity for transparency. While a mechanism exists for stakeholders to report corruption concerns, its accessibility to all stakeholders remains unclear. The company could also formalize and disclose a policy on its lobbying and political engagement activities. Specifying in a public policy document that it does not make political contributions could offer additional transparency. Lastly, the company has the opportunity to disclose both its lobbying expenditures and the requirement for third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company could disclose a policy requiring its suppliers to commit to worker health and safety, and elaborate on how it monitors this performance among its business relationships. It also has the opportunity to set or disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage, explain how it calculates this wage in various regions, and describe how it encourages its suppliers to do the same. While the company publicly supports gender equality and women’s empowerment, formalizing these commitments in a public policy document would provide more clarity. Although the company has its ICA 50/50 initiative aimed at promoting women in senior positions, it could strengthen this commitment by disclosing specific, time-bound targets. The company reports that 23.07% of its board members are women but has the opportunity to disclose the gender pay ratio across its workforce, broken down by employee category and significant locations.

Respect human rights
The company has a public statement committing to human rights and the ILO’s fundamental rights at work, but could formalize these commitments in a policy document. While it expects its suppliers to uphold specific workers’ rights, there’s room to expand this to include all ILO fundamental rights. The company could detail its process for identifying human rights risks in its own operations as well as in its supply chain, going beyond general statements about due diligence. Although it mentions having a human rights due diligence process and identifies 14 risks among suppliers, the company has not publicly described this assessment process or disclosed its results. It also has an opportunity to reveal a global system for addressing, preventing, or mitigating its key human rights risks.