M Dias Branco

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 a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and reports progress against it.

Solid and air pollution
The company discloses the proportion of hazardous waste treated to reduce pollution compared to total waste, the hazardous waste diverted from disposal and the waste directed to disposal.

Water
The company reports its water withdrawals in water-stressed areas for its own operations.

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

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data and a privacy statement on the use of personal data. Also, it discloses a policy on bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contractual agreements with business relationships. Furthermore, it has a grievance mechanism allowing stakeholders to raise related concerns.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain. Also, it reports the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group and covered by collective bargaining agreements. Furthermore, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and a target to achieve 40% women in senior leadership roles by 2030. Lastly, the company has 33.3% women on the board.

Respect human rights
The company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

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 by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe its process, including frequency and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and social inclusion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, it could link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Lastly, 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. The company 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 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. Crucially, all its scope 1, 2 and 3 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
While the company has highlighted a unit within an Environmental Preservation Area, there remains an opportunity to fully disclose all locations in proximity to key biodiversity regions. The company could further enhance transparency by identifying supplier locations in relation to biodiversity-sensitive areas and offering insights on species adjacent to their operations and suppliers. Providing conservation statuses of species around its facilities, in line with national and global conservation lists, would further demonstrate their commitment to biodiversity conservation.

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 does not disclose relevant information related to air pollution and plastic use in its operations or supply chains.

Water
The company has an opportunity to further improve water withdrawal by setting a time-bound target, showing year-on-year reductions in water withdrawal, and engaging with suppliers. The company does not disclose relevant information on water pollution or 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 has an integrity program for possible acts of corruption and conducts integrity due diligence to prevent corruption risks involving the third party. However, it has an opportunity to disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption. Furthermore, although the company prohibits making any political donations, it could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and state that it does not make political contributions and divulge its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards.

Additionally, the company could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage. It could also describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates and how it works to support its suppliers in paying a living wage although it expects suppliers to pay a legal wage.

Furthermore, the company could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work although it has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights.

Additionally, it could describe a comprehensive process for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts across all its activities and supply chain, and its salient human rights issues. It could further specify what it considers to be salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered such as geographical, economic and social factors, and how it acts to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues through a global system.