PhosAgro

Sustainability strategy and accountability
PhosAgro 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
PhosAgro has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 and 3 emissions by 14% by 2028 against 2018.

Solid and air pollution
PhosAgro 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. The company also reports regularly on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants. Additionally, it has time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain and reports regularly against them.

Water
PhosAgro reports a decrease in water pollution. The company has a commitment to respect the right to water.

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

Act ethically
PhosAgro identifies bribery and corruption risks through regular audits and has a policy that strictly prohibits bribery and corruption. Additionally, the company discloses its global tax strategy and lobbying expenditures. Furthermore, it ensures that its contracts with direct business relationships include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses.

Provide and promote decent work
PhosAgro affirms its commitment to worker health and safety through a publicly accessible policy statement. It transparently reports the coverage of its direct operations workforce under collective bargaining agreements. Moreover, the company actively monitors health and safety performance among its business relationships and states that employees should not exceed 48 hours of work per regular week or 60 hours with overtime. Lastly, the company openly discloses the proportion of women in different employee categories within its total direct operations workforce.

Respect human rights
PhosAgro has a publicly available policy statement that commits to respecting both the ILO core labour rights and human rights. Additionally, the company ensures that it provides a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to all workers.

Lobbying
PhosAgro does not report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on nature-related issues, nor whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

Stakeholder engagement
PhosAgro 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
While PhosAgro discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate, it has 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, 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
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
PhosAgro should report progress against its targets and needs to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Crucially, its targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
Prior to building new production facilities, the company conducts an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that includes consideration for local flora, fauna, and landscapes. However, the company has an opportunity to conduct a holistic assessment of its impact on nature and disclose the methodology and full results. It has not evaluated or disclosed its nature-related impacts or dependencies in its own operations or upstream business relationships.

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

Key areas and species
While PhosAgro has undertaken significant studies in collaboration with academic institutions to monitor species in specific areas, it has an opportunity to extend this disclosure to all species in or adjacent to its various locations, as well as the status of those species aligned with national and international conservation lists. Additionally, the methodology used to claim no operations in high-biodiversity-value areas remains undisclosed. The company could also improve transparency by disclosing the locations of its suppliers that are in or adjacent to areas important for biodiversity, as well as the species populations existing in or adjacent to the locations of its suppliers.

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
PhosAgro 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 also has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence regarding plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging, including the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal.

Water
PhosAgro reports an increase in water withdrawal. While the company has set a target to reduce water intensity, there is no evidence the company has set targets aimed at absolute water withdrawal. As such, the company has an opportunity to engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal. There is no evidence the company discloses water pollutant metrics, or set targets to reduce them. Furthermore, PhosAgro 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
PhosAgro mentions Indigenous Peoples’ rights but does not show a commitment to respecting these rights. There are no references provided to the relevant part(s) of ILO Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Additionally, the company fails to disclose its processes for identifying and recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples when its operations may impact these rights. The company also does not describe how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior, and informed consent.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
PhosAgro 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
PhosAgro has a mechanism in place for stakeholders to raise concerns, but it is unclear if this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders for reporting bribery and corruption without fear of reprisals. Additionally, the company outlines its approach to political engagement in a policy, but it could also take the opportunity to outline its approach to lobbying in a separate policy. It would be beneficial for the company to publicly disclose a statement stating that it does not make political contributions. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to require third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
PhosAgro has the chance to enhance its commitment language regarding the health and safety of workers in its business relationships. Additionally, it can demonstrate a stronger commitment to paying a living wage by setting a specific time-bound target. It could also be transparent about how it determines a living wage in the regions where it operates, and outline how it supports the payment of a living wage by its suppliers.
Moreover, it has an opportunity to publicly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and establish time-bound targets in this regard, and disclose that it has a minimum of 30% women representation on its board.
Lastly, the company could provide the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, based on significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
While PhosAgro expects suppliers to uphold specific workers’ rights, there’s room to include all fundamental ILO rights. In addition to its modern slavery risk assessment, the company could elaborate on how it identifies human rights risks across operations and supply chain. The company could also improve its transparency by revealing the outcomes of its human rights risk assessment.
Furthermore, the company can enhance its disclosure by detailing its human rights due diligence process, expanding beyond modern slavery risk assessment. It could also provide insights into its method for identifying significant human rights concerns and potentially introduce a global system to address such issues proactively.