Kewpie Corporation

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups.

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

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company has a commitment to ensure zero conversion.

GHG emissions
The company reduces its scope 1, 2 and 3 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
The company reports regularly on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants. It also demonstrates commitment and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Water
The company discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality. The company has a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal in its own operations and reports progress against the target. The company reports a decrease in water pollution.

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

Act ethically
The company has a public commitment to safeguard personal data and also maintains a policy that strictly prohibits bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers. Further, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. Additionally, the company aims to increase the ratio of female managers to 18% by 2024 and to 30% by 2030.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, the company has a publicly available policy statement expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights.

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 during its stakeholder engagement activities.

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. This should include how external stakeholders are involved in the process and how regularly the assessment is undertaken. Also, the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including social inclusion, water and climate change. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, the company could link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Lastly, it 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 a commitment to minimise ecosystem conversion and does not have time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains. The company does not disclose activities to minimise ecosystem conversion or to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

Finally, 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 should set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. Crucially, 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
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
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 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 further improve water withdrawal by showing year-on-year reductions in water withdrawal, disclosing water use 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 states that it would strengthen internal regulations to avoid bribery, evaluate the effectiveness of the bribery prevention system, and conduct periodic evaluations with the participation of management members as required. However, it could describe the process to identify its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations.

Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. While the company has a mechanism for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns, it is unclear if this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders and if complainants have the option to identify themselves or remain anonymous. Furthermore, the company could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and specify that it does not make political contributions and to divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company states that it respects the health and safety of workers, it could formalise this commitment in a public policy document. Additionally, it could disclose how it monitors the health and safety performance of its suppliers. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage and could also disclose how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. While the company has a statement on gender equality and women’s empowerment, it has an opportunity to translate the latter in a public policy document. Moreover, the company has an opportunity to disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company discloses that it builds mechanisms for practicing human rights due diligence in accordance with the UNGPs. Also, it discloses its human rights due diligence framework in which it conducts risk identification and assessment. However, it does not provide further details on the process. The company has an opportunity to describe the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, covering its supply chain. Additionally, it could describe its process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues and could also disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment. Moreover, it could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.