Tongaat Hulett

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

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

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

Act ethically
The company discloses a policy on bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contractual agreements with business relationships. Furthermore, it discloses its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption and a grievance mechanism allowing all stakeholders to raise related concerns.

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. Also, it discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements and the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. Furthermore, it discloses a target to increase representation of women in senior management by 35%, in the group by 25% and 30% female representation in South Africa by 2030.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights and 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 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, including frequency and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond materiality assessment.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses no sustainability strategy with nature-related targets. Additionally, while it states that it has a social, ethics, health and safety committee, it has an opportunity to disclose having persons, teams or committees who are responsible for the implementation of its sustainability strategy. 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 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 1,2 and 3 emissions and its targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
While the company acknowledges the direct and indirect impacts of its cropping, livestock, and agri-processing practices on ecosystems and biodiversity, and aims to optimize yields responsibly, it still has the opportunity to assess and disclose its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its own operations. The company also has the opportunity to assess its impacts on nature in its supply chain, 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
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 does not disclose relevant information related to pollution in its operations or supply chains.

Water
The company does not disclose its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality. The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and reports progress against the target. The company has an opportunity to report how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. The company has an opportunity to engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal. The company has an opportunity to disclose quantitative evidence of reductions in water withdrawal across its own operations. The company does not regularly report on water pollution. The company does not disclose targets to reduce water pollution.

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 could disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement beyond a personal level in a public policy document. Additionally, while it states that it makes political contributions only after approval from the CEO, it has an opportunity to disclose whether these are made only by exception, and the criteria for making them.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its supply chain and provide evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards.

Additionally, although the company states that it pays a legal wage to its employees and expects the same for its suppliers, 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 could commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment and disclose 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
While the company discloses statements committing it to respect the ILO’s fundamental rights at work, it has an opportunity to use stronger language to turn the statement into a formal commitment. Similarly, it expects its suppliers to respect specific workers’ rights but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, the company 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 such as geographical, economic and social factors, and how it acts to prevent, mitigate or remediate its salient human rights issues through a global system.