Yum! Brands

Lobbying
Yum! Brands discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member. It has however an opportunity to show further leadership by disclosing a full list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions in which it operates.

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.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
Yum! Brands has time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains, and discloses some activities to achieve these targets. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of high-risk commodities which are conversion-free.

GHG emissions
The company has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, its targets are aligned with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Solid and air pollution
Yum! Brands demonstrates commitment and partakes in activities related to plastic use reduction and transitioning towards sustainable packaging. It reports on the proportion of recycled content in plastic packaging. The company also reports regularly on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants.

Water
Yum! Brands reports how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. The company also demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations.

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

Act ethically
Yum! Brands discloses a public commitment to protect personal data. Furthermore, it has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships. Additionally, the company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
Yum! Brands 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. Additionally, the company discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. Furthermore, the company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group and gender. Moreover, it discloses its time-bound target of significantly increasing the number of women in senior leadership globally and achieving gender parity in leadership globally by 2030 in alignment with Paradigm for Parity.

Respect human rights
Yum! Brands has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. The company describes the process for identifying human rights risks and impacts in its supply chain. The company indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and all 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 the alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to report (potential) misalignments.

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
Yum! Brands discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including climate and water. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, while the company reports consistently against some targets including climate, it has an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets at the group level. 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
Yum! Brands does not have a commitment to ensure zero conversion. Furthermore, the company is not committed to restoring ecosystems and it does not disclose details and outcomes of ecosystem restoration projects in areas affected by its own operations or by its suppliers.

GHG emissions
The company should reduce its emissions across all scopes and report progress against its scope 1, 2 and 3 targets.

Impact and dependencies assessment
While collaborating with WWF and referencing robust tools and data sources such as the Global 200 ecoregions and Ramsar Sites for biodiversity assessments, the company has an opportunity to disclose the results of its assessments on impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its own operations and upstream business relationships. Additionally, the company can benefit from evaluating its dependencies on nature in its operations and supply chain to reinforce its sustainability practices.

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
Yum! Brands has an opportunity to disclose its inputs according to an international standard, and to report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance. The company also has an opportunity to disclose activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and to report progress against it.

Solid and air pollution
Yum! Brands should work on reducing the production of hazardous waste. It has an opportunity to set and disclose time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants across the most material parts of its value chain. While the company describes its activities 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 the proportions directed from or to disposal.

Water
Yum! Brands has an opportunity to further improve water withdrawal by setting a time-bound target and engaging with suppliers. Moreover, 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
Yum! Brands 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
Yum! Brands has a process for identifying bribery and corruption but could disclose details of this process. Moreover, while it has a publicly available policy statement setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach, the scope of the policy is limited to U.S. markets. Similarly, the company has a publicly available policy stating that it makes political contributions and specifies the criteria of making it but the scope of the policy is limited to U.S. markets. Then, it has an opportunity to disclose whether these are made only by exception, and the criteria for making them.
Furthermore, the company discloses some information regarding its lobbying expenditures. However, it has an opportunity to disclose the expenditures in all locations where it carries out lobbying activities or specify it only does so in specific countries or regions. Lastly, the company could disclose that it requires third-party lobbyists to comply with its lobbying and political engagement policy.

Provide and promote decent work
While Yum! Brands states that it is committed to complying with all laws pertaining to wages, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to disclose how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates and also how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers.
While the company has a statement on gender equality and women’s empowerment, it has an opportunity to translate the latter into a public policy document. Additionally, it could disclose the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category, by significant locations of operation.

Respect human rights
Yum! Brands discloses statements committing it to respect the ILO’s fundamental rights at work. However, it has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work and also use stronger language to turn the statement into a formal commitment. Similarly, the company expects its suppliers to respect specific workers’ rights but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.
Furthermore, the company has an opportunity to describe the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities, covering its own operations and could also disclose the results of its human rights risk assessment. Additionally, the company could describe its process for assessing and identifying what it considers to be its salient human rights issues and disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.