NH Foods

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups.

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.

GHG emissions
The company reduces its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Solid and air pollution
The company partakes in activities and discloses quantitative data related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging, including the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal. Additionally, it reports regularly on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants.

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

Act ethically
The company is committed to protecting personal data and has publicly disclosed this commitment. Additionally, the company has also disclosed its global tax strategy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company shares data on the gender composition across various employee categories within its direct operations. It has set multiple targets for gender diversity: aiming to have women occupy at least 20% of supervisory positions and 20% or more of executive roles by 2030. Additionally, it seeks to increase the percentage of female managers to 20% and the proportion of women in supervisory roles to 35% by the same year.

Respect human rights
The company publicly commits to respecting human rights and adhering to the ILO’s core labor rights through available policy statements. It also notes the existence of a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to all of its workers.

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.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, water and social inclusion, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain and report consistently against all its targets. Furthermore, it could link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Lastly, although the company states that the board of directors has expertise in sustainability, 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
The company does not disclose its efforts in achieving conversion-free supply chains. Although the company aims to achieve this goal, it does not have a specified timeline or a company-wide objective. Additionally, the company has not made a public commitment to minimizing ecosystem conversion or ensuring zero conversion. Furthermore, there is no commitment from the company to restore ecosystems, and it does not share specific information or outcomes regarding ecosystem restoration projects in areas impacted by its own operations or its suppliers.

GHG emissions
The company discloses its target to reduce it’s emissions of fossil fuel-derived CO2 in Japan by 46% by 2030 with respect to 2013 and overseas by 24% compared to 2021. However it is not clear whether this will lead to a total reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions across all its operations. Then, 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, the company needs to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions and 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
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 currently discloses certain inputs, but there is room for improvement in providing more detailed information and categorizing them as either renewable or non-renewable. Additionally, the company does not provide quantitative reporting on its overall circularity performance across its entire group. Another area where the company has an opportunity for disclosure is in sharing its efforts to enhance soil health and promote agrobiodiversity within its production or sourcing practices. To further demonstrate commitment in this area, the company could also disclose a specific target for improving soil health in its production or sourcing practices and regularly report on the progress made towards achieving that target.

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 could also disclose time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain.

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 prohibits bribery and corruption but could formalize this stance in a public policy document. The company has an opportunity to outline its methods for identifying bribery and corruption risks in specific locations or within its own operations. It could also include clauses against bribery and corruption in contracts with business partners. Although a mechanism exists for stakeholders to report bribery and corruption issues, it’s not clear if it’s accessible to everyone or allows for anonymous reporting. The company could adopt a policy detailing its approach to lobbying and political engagement. While it discloses making political donations, further clarification is needed on whether these are exceptional cases and what criteria guide these donations. The company could also disclose its lobbying expenditures and require third-party lobbyists to adhere to its policy on lobbying and political engagement.

Provide and promote decent work
The company states it prioritizes worker health and safety but could formalize this commitment in a public policy. It could also release a policy requiring suppliers to uphold worker health and safety, as well as disclose its monitoring procedures for supplier compliance. The company has an opportunity to announce a time-specific goal for providing all workers with a living wage, clarify its methodology for determining what constitutes a living wage in various regions, and encourage suppliers to also pay a living wage. Though the company aims for 20% of supervisory roles to be held by women by 2030, it lacks a public commitment to women’s empowerment. It discloses its gender pay gap for FY 2021 but does not provide detailed data comparing the basic salary and remuneration of women to men across different employee categories and significant locations of operation. All members of its audit and supervisory board are male.

Respect human rights
The company expects suppliers to adhere to the ILO’s fundamental work rights, but hasn’t formalized this expectation in an official policy. Although the company plans to enact a human rights due diligence process, there is no public evidence describing its methods for assessing and identifying human rights risks and impacts in its own operations or its supply chain. The company could provide more details on its process for assessing and identifying its salient human rights issues, disclose the outcomes of its human rights risk assessments, and reveal a global system designed to act on, prevent, or mitigate these salient human rights risks.