BioMar

Sustainability strategy
BioMar 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.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
BioMar demonstrates its commitment to sustainable marine feed ingredients by disclosing evidence that it adheres to environmental sourcing criteria. Additionally, the company has set specific timelines for achieving sustainable sourcing of marine feed ingredients throughout its entire portfolio. Furthermore, the company provides regular progress reports on its efforts in meeting these targets.

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
BioMar demonstrates leading practice towards efficient use of marine ingredients in aquaculture feed by disclosing quantitative evidence of increasing the use of trimmings in aquaculture feed production or aquaculture farming across 100% of its operations. The company states that the use of trimmings went up from 24% in 2020 to 36% in 2022. Nevertheless, the company has an opportunity to set a target for the use of alternative feed ingredients and report progress against its target.

No leading practices were identified in the traceability area.

No leading practices were identified in the social responsibility area.

Respect human rights
BioMar discloses a policy statement committing to respecting human rights and the fundamental rights at work declared by the ILO in its operations and supply chain. It also provides a case study describing how it has acted on a salient human rights risk issue and indicates it has a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Provide and promote decent work
BioMar discloses a policy commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers for its operations and supply chain and provides evidence of how it monitors its suppliers’ performance on health and safety standards.

Additionally, it discloses a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or state that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage and describes how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Furthermore, the company publicly states that workers shall not be required to work more than 48 hours in a regular work week or 60 hours including overtime in its operations and supply chain.

Moreover, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category and that of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by race or ethnicity. It also publicly commits to gender equality and women’s empowerment and discloses a related target.

Act ethically
BioMar discloses a policy on bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contractual agreements with business relationships. Furthermore, it describes that it has a grievance mechanism allowing stakeholders to raise related concerns.

Sustainability strategy
BioMar discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to social responsibility. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain, including ecosystem impacts and traceability. While the company reports on some of their targets, including those related to social responsibility, it could report consistently across all its targets.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
BioMar has an opportunity to strengthen its sustainability governance and accountability by assigning decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to targets and objectives which cover nature, including environmental and social issues. Additionally, it could disclose if the highest governance body has expertise in its most material sustainability topics.

Stakeholder engagement
BioMar 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 frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups, beyond its materiality assessment.

Lobbying and advocacy
BioMar has an opportunity to disclose a list of trade associations of which it is a member. Furthermore, it could provide a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of these trade associations with its sustainability targets and report any (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
While BioMar demonstrates a commitment to sustainable marine feed ingredients, there is an opportunity to strengthen its efforts by providing quantitative evidence of the recent progress made in these areas, especially how it is increasing the proportion of marine feed ingredients coming from certified sources.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
BioMar discloses that almost 70% of its marine feed ingredients are MarinTrust certified. However, by omitting its operations in China in its reporting, BioMar does not provide a comprehensive overview of the certified status of its entire portfolio. Therefore, the company has an opportunity to improve its reporting by including its entire portfolio of marine ingredients sources.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
BioMar has a general commitment to traceable aquaculture feed ingredients. The company discloses that all feed ingredients can be traced back through BioMar’s production and warehouses to the supplier of each individual raw material. Nevertheless, BioMar has an opportunity to enhance its commitment to traceable marine ingredients by adopting and endorsing the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST). Additionally, the company could improve transparency by providing information on the specific key data elements it collects as part of its traceability system.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
By sourcing marine feed ingredients from MarinTrust certified fisheries, BioMar reduces risks of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) risks for those fisheries. However, these risks are not mitigated for uncertified sources. Therefore, the company has an opportunity to enhance its approach to mitigate and address IUU fishing risks by demonstrating it has a tool to assess IUU risks and disclosing how mitigates identified risks.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
BioMar discloses a general overview of its sourcing of marine feed ingredients. However, this overview does not include China and does include information about the sustainability status of all of those sources. Therefore, the company has an opportunity to disclose a more comprehensive overview of the sources of its marine feed ingredients.

Forced Labour
BioMar has an opportunity to disclose forced labour requirements for its operations and supply chain such as a prohibition to pay recruitment fees, to retain workers’ personal documents or to restrict workers’ freedom of movement. Further, it could provide evidence of how it builds the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
BioMar has set up initiatives to improve the sustainability of the shrimp farms but it could demonstrate how it improves fish farmers’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships. Also, it has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some regions or commodities.

Working and living conditions on board fishing vessels
BioMar has an opportunity to ensure decent working conditions on board fishing vessels by demonstrating that it monitors compliance with ILO conventions and that improvements are implemented if needed.

Respect human rights
While BioMar conducts a human rights impact assessment and due diligence in its operations and supply chain, it has an opportunity to 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. Furthermore, it could describe 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.

Provide and promote decent work
BioMar has an opportunity to disclose how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. Furthermore, it could also disclose the representation of women on the highest governance body and the ratio of the basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Act ethically
BioMar could disclose its processes for identifying and addressing bribery and corruption. It also has an opportunity to disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document and state that it does not make political contributions and divulge its lobbying expenditures.