Pernod Ricard

Sustainability strategy and accountability
Pernod Ricard 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. Also, it has group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain and reports consistently against all its targets. Finally, the company provides evidence of linking performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
Pernod Ricard is committed to restoring ecosystems, with a goal for every affiliate to participate in a strategic biodiversity initiative to safeguard natural ecosystems.

GHG emissions
Pernod Ricard has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
Pernod Ricard has an opportunity to provide more detailed information regarding the total amount of raw materials it discloses. Additionally, the company discloses its activities aimed at enhancing soil health or promoting agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

Solid and air pollution
Pernod Ricard demonstrates commitment, partakes in activities and discloses quantitative data related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging, including the percentage of recycled plastic content in its packaging.

Water
Pernod Ricard discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality. It also reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. Moreover, Pernod Ricard has a commitment to respect the right to water. Furthermore, the company 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
Pernod Ricard discloses its processes to identify and recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples when activities in its own operations may impact their rights, and describes how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
Pernod Ricard is committed to zero tolerance for acts of violence, threats, intimidation or judicial harassment committed against land and environmental rights defenders.

Act ethically
Pernod Ricard identifies bribery and corruption risks through qualitative evidence. It also has a policy in place that strictly prohibits bribery and corruption. Furthermore, the company includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in all its contracts with direct business relationships. Additionally, the company has established a grievance mechanism that allows stakeholders to raise concerns and file complaints specifically related to bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
Pernod Ricard has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and expects its business relationships to do so. The company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by race or ethnicity. Additionally, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. The company has 50% women on the board, and it also publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment. Furthermore, it targets to achieve 30% gender balance in its management bodies by 2025 and a 40% gender balance by 2030.

Respect human rights
Pernod Ricard publicly discloses the results of its human rights risk assessments and has a publicly available policy statement expecting suppliers to respect the ILO core labour rights. It also describes the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations, as well as in its supply chain. Additionally, the company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights.

Pernod Ricard discloses its global system for taking action to prevent, mitigate, or remediate salient human rights issues. This includes a description of how its global system applies to its supply chain. Furthermore, the company indicates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Lobbying
While Pernod Ricard discloses some of its trade associations, it has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member of. Additionally, while the company states that it strictly complies with its reporting obligations regarding lobbying activities, it has an opportunity to report (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Stakeholder engagement
Pernod Ricard 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 for engaging with stakeholder groups, beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
Pernod Ricard 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
No evidence was found regarding Pernod Ricard’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
Pernod Ricard discloses an overall reduction of its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in 2021, compared to the year 2018. However, no evidence was found that the company discloses quantitative reductions against the previous year’s disclosure. Crucially, the company needs to reduce its scope 1,2 and 3 emissions and its targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
Pernod Ricard is committed to protecting ecosystems and enhancing biodiversity through its Nurturing Terroir strategy and regenerative agriculture practices. Despite this, it has an opportunity to conduct a holistic assessment of its impact on nature and disclose the methodology and full results of its assessments, especially regarding its impact on nature in upstream activities. It has not assessed or disclosed its dependencies on nature in its own operations or upstream business relationships.

Invasive species
Pernod Ricard has not identified any activities that could lead to the introduction of invasive alien species in its own operations.

Key areas and species
Pernod Ricard 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
Pernod Ricard does not report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance. The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and report progress against it.

Solid and air pollution
Pernod Ricard should commit to avoiding 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 report on the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal. The company could also report on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants and disclose time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain.

Water
Pernod Ricard discloses an increase in its water withdrawal and has established a related target. However, the company does not report regularly on water pollutant metrics, nor has it set targets to reduce them.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
Pernod Ricard does not disclose a commitment to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Also, the company does not disclose its processes to identify and recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples when activities in its own operations may impact their rights, and describes how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
Pernod Ricard has an opportunity to commit to respecting local communities’ right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Moreover, it should track its actual or potential negative impacts on the health of local communities.

Act ethically
While Pernod Ricard informs its stakeholders about its lobbying and political engagement strategy, it has the opportunity to further formalize and clarify this approach by creating a public policy document. It could specify that it does not make political contributions. Although the company claims to disclose data on lobby expenditures as required by the French transparency registry and could make its lobbying expenditures accessible. Moreover, Pernod Ricard could disclose that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While Pernod Ricard discloses that it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships, it has an opportunity to disclose the ways in which it does so. 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. While the company expects its suppliers to compensate workers according to the applicable wage laws, it could disclose if such wage is enough to maintain a decent standard of living for employees of its business relationships and their families.
Furthermore, 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. It could also consider committing to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose related targets, as well as the representation of women on the highest governance body and the ratio of the basic salary, and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
Pernod Ricard has a publicly available policy statement that commits to respecting specific workers’ rights. However, it could also reference all the fundamental rights at work established by the International Labour Organization (ILO). In addition, the company provides information on how it assesses its human rights risks. Nevertheless, it has an opportunity to disclose what it considers to be its most significant human rights issues.