Svenska Cellulosa

Lobbying
Svenska Cellulosa discloses some industry associations it is a member of. It has however an opportunity to further show leadership by providing a full list for all geographies where it operates.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities, as well as its process for engaging with stakeholder groups, including frequency and channels, beyond its materiality assessment.

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.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company is committed to restoring ecosystems, and it discloses details and outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects in areas affected by its own operations or by its suppliers.

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

Key areas and species
The company shares details of species populations near its locations and identifies sites proximate to biodiversity-rich areas. It provides the conservation status of species at its sites based on national and international lists. Furthermore, the company has a strategy centered on conserving species affected by its operations, targeting a net-positive effect on endangered species.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses its inputs according to an international standard, and it discloses which organisms it directly exploits for commercial uses, including wild animal and plant species.

Solid and air pollution
The company reports regularly on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants.

Water
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations and regularly reports on water pollution.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company 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.

Act ethically
Svenska Cellulosa discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Additionally, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Also, the company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise related concerns and complaints and discloses its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a policy statement.

Provide and promote decent work
Svenska Cellulosa has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain. It further discloses quantitative information on the health and safety of its workers and how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. Additionally, the company discloses both the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and the breakdown of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group. Lastly, it reports the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and has 40% women on the board.

Respect human rights
Svenska Cellulosa has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. It also 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 has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to report (potential) misalignments.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company has an opportunity to disclose group wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, while the company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability and climate, it could link this policy to improvement in nature-related objectives and social issues. Lastly, it 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
The company does not have a commitment or time-bound targets to ensure zero conversion, and does not disclose activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

GHG emissions
The company reports progress against targets, however, there has been an increase in scope 1 and 2 emissions since the previous year. It should reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to this, 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 its suppliers’ locations within or adjacent to areas important for biodiversity and further disclose existing species populations existing in or adjacent to its suppliers’ locations.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company does not report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance. The company has an opportunity to disclose activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, and to disclose a target to improve soil health and report progress against it.

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.

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. It has an opportunity to set time-bound targets to reduce water pollution metrics. The company does not disclose relevant information on rights to water in its operations or supply chains.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company 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
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 could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. It also has an opportunity to disclose a publicly available policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions. Furthermore, the company could disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities and that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
The company states that it complies with labour regulations on wages and expects suppliers to uphold the same standard. However, it 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.

Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose related targets. It could also report the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

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 specify what it considers to be salient human rights issues, how relevant factors are considered, and how it acts to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues through a global system.