Nordzucker

No leading practices were identified in the governance and strategy area.

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

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 related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging.

Water
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in 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 global tax strategy. Moreover, the company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. It also has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise related concerns and complaints.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers. These expectations are similarly extended to its business relationships. Additionally, the company openly acknowledges achieving the payment of a living wage to all of its workers. Furthermore, it reports the proportion of its workforce that is covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Respect human rights
The company 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. Furthermore, 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 does not disclose how it engages with stakeholders, nor the issues it raises during such 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. Also, the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets and reports consistently against some targets including climate. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain and report consistently against all its targets. Additionally, although the company states it has a Head of Sustainability, it could disclose having persons, teams or committees who are responsible for the implementation of its sustainability strategy and assign decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. 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 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 expects its agricultural suppliers to promote biodiversity through conservation efforts, it still has the opportunity to assess its own impacts on nature, including biodiversity, and disclose the methodology and results of these assessments. The same opportunity exists for evaluating the impacts of its upstream activities on nature and biodiversity. The company also has room to assess and disclose its dependencies on nature within its own operations and 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
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 commitments 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 setting a time-bound target, disclosing water withdrawals in water-stressed areas, 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 has an opportunity to outline the process it employs for identifying bribery and corruption risks and impacts, particularly in specific locations or activities related to its own operations.

Furthermore, although the company mentions its adherence to national regulations concerning lobbying and political engagement, there is an opportunity for the company to set out its approach to lobbying and political engagement. It could further disclose publicly accessible policy statement explicitly stating that it refrains from making political contributions, and divulge its expenditures associated with lobbying activities.

Provide and promote decent work
The company expects its business relationships to prioritise employee health and safety, with the right to verify compliance through audits. However, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose its monitoring of supplier health and safety performance, and detail the audit process.

Additionally, the company could reveal its method for determining a living wage in its operational regions. While wage expectations for suppliers are in place, there is an opportunity to add a requirement for suppliers to pay living wage, and provide insights into how it supports suppliers in meeting this standard.

Moreover, while the company is engaged in women’s empowerment initiatives, it has an opportunity to explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment, along with disclosing related time-bound targets. The company could also present information such as the proportion of women on the supervisory board and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company, through its human rights due diligence processes, identifies, prevents and mitigates human rights risks. It also conducts risks assessments in countries where it has no previous experience in and has not reviewed periodically. In addition, it evaluates suppliers by using self-assessment surveys and on-site audits. However, there is an opportunity to comprehensively describe the processes for identifying human rights risks and impacts across its operations and supply chain.

Further, although the company discloses its salient human rights issues, it has an opportunity to disclose the process for assessing saliency of these risks more clearly. Moreover, although the company discloses that it works actively with suppliers to address and remediate issues of human rights violations, it could disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues. This system’s applicability to the supply chain could also be disclosed.