Kraft Heinz

Stakeholder engagement
Kraft Heinz discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities along with frequency and 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
Kraft Heinz 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.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
Kraft Heinz aims to achieve conversion-free supply chains and discloses some of its activities towards this goal.

GHG emissions
Kraft Heinz has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. The company targets reduce its emissions by 50 percent by 2030 across all three scopes and to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions across its operational footprint (Scope 1 and Scope 2) and entire global value chain (Scope 3) by 2050. Additionally, it shows reductions in its scope 1 and 2 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 engages in activities and discloses quantitative data related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Water
Kraft Heinz reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas and demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations. The company also has a commitment to respect the right to water, and requires access to water and sanitation, including refraining from negatively affecting access to safe water, to be included in contractual arrangements with its business relationships.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
Kraft Heinz requires its business relationships to identify and recognise affected Indigenous Peoples and to obtain their free, prior and informed consent regarding whether and how to carry out projects.

Act ethically
Kraft Heinz discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Additionally, the company has a global tax strategy, and discloses that an executive-level body has responsibility for this strategy. Furthermore, the company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and includes related clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. It further has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption. Moreover, the company discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement, and divulges its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
Kraft Heinz has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers in its operations and supply chain, and discloses how it monitors supplier compliance. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by race or ethnicity. Moreover, it reports the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, reveals that it has 36.36% women on the board, and sets a target to increase representation of women by 50% in its global management positions by 2025.

Respect human rights
Kraft Heinz has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and the ILO fundamental rights at work in its operations and supply chain. It also describes the process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its supply chain. Furthermore, company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, as well as all 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 for all jurisdictions where it operates. 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.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, ecosystem conversion and social inclusion. However, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, while the company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability, it could link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Lastly, it has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company has not publicly disclosed its efforts to minimize ecosystem conversion. Although it aims to achieve a conversion-free supply chain, it has yet to set a specific time-bound or group-wide target. Additionally, it has not revealed any commitments to minimize ecosystem conversion or guarantee zero conversion. The company also has not expressed dedication to restoring ecosystems. Furthermore, information and outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects, whether carried out in areas impacted by the company’s operations or its suppliers, remain undisclosed.

GHG emissions
The company could report progress against its scope 3 targets. Crucially, all its scope 1, 2 and 3 targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
While the company has conducted a risk assessment focused on deforestation and peatland/biodiversity hotspot encroachment in its direct global palm oil supply chain, it still has an opportunity to assess and disclose its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within all its own operations and in all upstream activities of its value chain. Additionally, the company has yet to assess and disclose its dependencies on nature within its operations and in its 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
While the company has disclosed that one of its sites is located near a nature reserve, there is an opportunity to provide a comprehensive list of areas with high biodiversity value, both within its own operations and in relation to its suppliers. Additionally, it can expand its disclosure to include species populations adjacent to all of its locations and those of its suppliers, aligned with national and international conservation 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. It also has an opportunity 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 has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and reports progress against the target. While it sets relevant expectations on suppliers to reduce water withdrawal, it has an opportunity to further engage with them. Furthermore, the company does not 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 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 states that it recognises the environmental impact of its operations by continuous collaboration, ownership, and innovation, however, it is unclear if it commits to respect the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment of local communities. The companyalso has an opportunity to commit 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 describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Additionally, while the company states that it makes political contributions after approval from the Global Head of Government Affairs, it has an opportunity to disclose whether these are made only by exception, and the criteria for making such exception.

Provide and promote decent work
The company states that it provides fair and equitable wages in accordance with applicable local laws, but it has an opportunity to disclose a a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or declare that that it has achieved this goal. It could also describe how it determines a living wage for each region. Relatedly, while the company has set expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers, it could also require them to pay a living wage, and disclose how it supports the payment.

Moreover, while company has made efforts towards women empowerment, it can explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment, and increase transparency by disclosing information on the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has conducted a human rights assessment, and has an opportunity to describe the risk identification process. Additionally, it could describe how it assesses and identifies what it considers to be its salient human rights issues. Moreover, while the company discloses that it takes efforts to prevent, mitigate and manage human rights risks, it could disclose a global system to act on all its salient human rights issues in all its activities.