Kimberly-Clark

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company reports against the targets it has set, and provides evidence that its highest governance body has expertise on sustainability related issues.

GHG emissions
The company reduces its scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, has time-bound targets to further reduce them, and reports against the targets.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses its inputs, including its material footprint.

Solid and air pollution
The company discloses quantitative reductions in hazardous waste. The company reports the total waste generated and hazardous waste diverted from disposal, as well as hazardous waste directed to disposal. The company discloses quantitative data with regards to plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging. The company discloses its target to cut the plastic footprint in half by 2030, from its 2019 baseline. Further, the company reports a progress of 11.5% against the same. The company reports on the proportion of recycled content in plastic packaging.

Water
The company reports the proportion of water withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. The company discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality.

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

Act ethically
The company has a publicly available policy that prohibits bribery and corruption across all business dealings globally. It also maintains a supplier code of conduct, which mandates compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corruption Practices Act, UK Bribery Act, and local laws regarding bribery, with non-compliance potentially resulting in the termination of business relationships. Additionally, the company offers a reporting mechanism accessible via phone, email, and a website for stakeholders to raise concerns anonymously without fear of reprisals, ensuring issues can be reported directly to its Global Ethics & Compliance team.

Provide and promote decent work
The company publicly commits to respecting worker health and safety, with detailed policy statements in its Code of Conduct. It actively monitors and discloses a comprehensive range of health and safety metrics, such as work-related injuries and hours worked, with a reported fatality rate of 0.00 and a reportable injury rate of 0.21. The company expects its business relationships to maintain safe and healthy workplaces, as stated in its Supplier Code of Conduct. Moreover, it engages third-party auditors to ensure compliance with health and safety standards across its supply chain, assessing over 150 facilities annually. The company also achieves gender balance with 50% female representation on its board.

Respect human rights
The company upholds human rights with policies prohibiting forced labour, child labour, discrimination, and harassment, approved by the highest governance body. They ensure workers’ freedom of association and protect against forced and child labour in their supply chain, setting age and labour standards even where local laws allow exceptions. This commitment extends to suppliers, who must adhere to strict social compliance standards and undergo rigorous assessments for human rights risks, including third-party audits. Moreover, the company discloses a detailed approach for mitigating salient human rights issues in its supply chain, which includes enhanced due diligence in high-risk countries and multi-stakeholder collaboration on forced labour. Additionally, the company employs systems to monitor and prioritise high-risk areas and commodities in their supply chain, actively managed by their Responsible Sourcing and Human Rights Governance Committee.

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
While the company discloses an overview of its stakeholder engagement plan, it has an opportunity to disclose more comprehensive details including an overview of the issues raised or its process for engaging with stakeholder groups, including frequency and channels.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company does not disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts. 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. 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.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company does not have a commitment to ensure zero conversion. The company discloses some evidence of addressing conversion. However, this does not guarantee DCF-aligned practices. While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it does not have a time-bound target for all of its high-risk commodities. The company discloses that it is aligning its principles with recent frameworks, it does not actively commit to the restoration of ecosystems. The company 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 has an opportunity to 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 found that the company reports quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance.

Solid and air pollution
The company is not reducing the production of hazardous substances. The company does not commit to avoid developing or marketing new chemicals or products with SVHC (substance of very high concern) properties. The company does not report on the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal. It also does not report metrics on air pollutants, nor set time-bound targets to reduce them.

Water
The company reports an increase in water use. While the company has a target to reduce water use, it only applies to water-stressed areas, not all its operation. The company does not engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal. The company does not report a decrease in water pollution. The company does not regularly report on water pollution metrics, nor 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 does not describe processes for identifying bribery and corruption risks and lacks a formal policy on political engagement, despite disclosing its lobbying approach. It is also unclear whether all lobbying expenditures are disclosed. The company has an opportunity to articulate and formalise its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks and to enhance the transparency of its political engagement and lobbying expenditure disclosures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company provides compensation compliant with wage laws but does not confirm if these are adequate for a decent living. Its ‘She Can’ initiative focuses on female empowerment, yet there is no extensive public commitment to gender equality or specific targets related to women’s empowerment. The company has an opportunity to define its living wage parameters, establish clear goals for the payment of living wages in business relationships, and commit publicly to comprehensive gender equality and empowerment objectives.

Respect human rights
The company demonstrates a structured approach to human rights in its supply chain, with a clear commitment approved by its highest governance body and detailed monitoring mechanisms. It utilises various tools and platforms to assess human rights risks, focusing on a wide range of issues, from child labour to environmental impacts. Despite these measures, the company does not provide specific details on the processes for assessing human rights risks within its own operations nor does it disclose the results of its assessments in a manner that aggregates information across locations. The company has an opportunity to disclose more comprehensively how it identifies, prioritises, and addresses human rights risks in its own operations, alongside a detailed description of its global system for mitigating these risks.