Cargill

Sustainability strategy
Cargill consistently reports on all its sustainability targets, encompassing environmental, social, and traceability aspects. The company is transparent about its time-bound targets relating to social inclusion, ecosystem conversion, traceability, water, and climate, and it provides progress updates on these group-wide targets. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement in disclosing clearer baseline data.

Stakeholder engagement
Cargill’s stakeholder engagement activities cover its most material sustainability topics.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
Cargill reports sourcing 43% of its marine feed ingredients from fisheries certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and 80% from fisheries certified by MarinTrust. Working with these certifications allows the company to ensure that the ecosystem impacts of the majority of the fisheries it sources from are addressed.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
As an active participant in SeaBOS, Cargill supports the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST). Furthermore, Cargill discloses its efforts in implementing the collection of Key Data Elements (KDEs) aligned with the GDST standards for its marine feed ingredients. The company could nevertheless further strengthen its commitment by setting a time-bound commitment for implementing the GDST standards throughout its supply chain and operations.

Forced Labour
Cargill discloses a prohibition to use any recruitment fees or related costs to secure a job and to retain workers’ personal documents or restrict workers’ freedom of movement for its operations and supply chain.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
Cargill demonstrates its commitment to support farmers by empowering them to strengthen their bargaining power. One example of this is the Hatching Hope project in Kenya that provides smallholder farmers access to inputs, markets, and financing across the poultry value chain. Also, the company provides leadership training, financial knowledge, and sustainable entrepreneurship education to female shrimp producers in Mexico and Ecuador. Further, it reports on the impacts of its Yellow Corn project in the Philippines in which the farmers were able to increase their income by 27%.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect human rights, including the ILO core labour rights. Additionally, the company expects its suppliers to uphold the ILO core labour rights as stated in its public policy statement. Moreover, the company demonstrates its commitment to human rights by providing a grievance mechanism that is accessible to all workers and external stakeholders who may be negatively affected by its operations.

Provide and promote decent work
The company publicly states its commitment to respecting the health and safety of workers as well as expects its business relationships to abide by the same commitment through a readily available policy statement. Furthermore, the company transparently discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category. In line with its dedication to gender equality and women’s empowerment, the company publicly commits to achieving gender parity in leadership globally by 2030.

Act ethically
The company is committed to protecting personal data and publicizes this commitment. It also has a policy that firmly prohibits bribery and corruption. In addition, the company includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in all contracts with its direct business relationships. To address concerns and complaints related to bribery and corruption, the company has established a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to utilize. Moreover, the company openly communicates its approach to lobbying and political engagement through a policy statement.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
Cargill discloses that it links the Executive Team’s compensation with the progress of selected sustainability targets, such as CO2 emissions; however, it has an opportunity to also link this policy to improvements in social targets. The company can also act on this area by disclosing whether the Board of Directors has expertise in its most material sustainability topics, and if not, providing the necessary training or access to specialized experts.

Stakeholder engagement
Cargill has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised by each stakeholder group during its stakeholder engagement activities and to describe the channels it uses to engage with stakeholder groups, beyond materiality assessment.

Lobbying and advocacy
While Cargill discloses some of the trade associations it is member of, it has an opportunity to disclose a full list of trade associations of which it is a member for all jurisdictions where it operates. Furthermore, it has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to report any (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
While Cargill provides evidence of a commitment to sustainable marine feed ingredients, there is an opportunity to provide quantitative evidence that it is increasing the share of its marine feed ingredient portfolio that is certified. In addition, the company can improve its performance in this area by setting a target for marine feed ingredients for 100% of its portfolio.

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
Cargill discloses the forage fish dependency ratio (FFDR) of its fish oil and fish meal from 2015 to 2021. Although the FFDR has decreased for parts of its portfolio, it has increased in others. The company also reports the use trimmings in its aquaculture feeds since 2019. The percentage of trimmings used has fluctuated since then, with a decrease from the 2019 (40.2%) baseline in 2020 (34.8%) and 2021 (39.6%). Finally, Cargill has an opportunity to set and report on a target for the use of alternative feed ingredients.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
Cargill mitigates illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) risks by sourcing certified marine ingredients. However, the company can improve its approach to addressing IUU risks by demonstrating it has a tool in place to assess IUU risks across its marine feed ingredient supply chain, disclosing the results of these risk assessments and how any risks are addressed.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
Cargill provides an overview of the geographical origin for 96% of its marine feed ingredients as well as an overview of the certification status. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose information regarding the specific species or production methods associated with these marine feed ingredients. Lastly, Cargill has an opportunity to update its Ocean Disclosure Project (ODP) profile which was last updated in 2018.

Forced Labour
While Cargill provides training to suppliers to address forced labour, it has an opportunity to disclose how it builds suppliers’ capacity to prevent and address forced labour impacts.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
Cargill discloses that it uses its own Farm Economic Model to estimate livelihoods at a household level as part of its Cargill Cocoa Promise program in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire but it has an opportunity to disclose how it assesses living income gaps and which living income benchmarks it has identified. Furthermore, the company has set up initiatives such as the RegenConnect programme to improve the productivity of farmers but it has an opportunity to demonstrate how it improves farmer and fisher’ income resilience through its procurement practices and supply chain relationships.

Working and living conditions on board fishing vessels
Cargill maintains a Supplier Code of Conduct that emphasizes the importance of treating individuals with dignity and respect. The company expects its supplier partners to uphold safe working conditions and comply with applicable laws pertaining to fair remuneration. However, the company has an opportunity to explicitly extend the Supplier Code of Conduct to include fishing vessels and to demonstrate how it monitors for compliance.

Respect human rights
Cargill has identified human rights risks and impacts in its own operations. To provide more clarity, the company should describe the risk identification process. While the company states that it conducts general due diligence, it should specify that this includes human rights due diligence for identifying risks and impacts in its supply chain. Additionally, the company discloses its salient human rights issues, but it should provide a clearer disclosure of the process used to assess the significance of these risks and the results of its human rights risk assessment. Lastly, it has the chance to disclose a global system to act on its salient human rights issues, aiming to prevent, lessen, or remedy them.

Provide and promote decent work
While Cargill discloses that it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships, it has an opportunity to disclose the specific methods it employs for this monitoring. In relation to its oil palm plantation operations, the company discloses that it pays a living wage to its employees. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity for the company to extend this commitment to cover all workers. The company mentions that it conducts living wage assessments but should disclose the specific methodology it uses to determine what constitutes a living wage in the regions it operates in. Furthermore, the company could further enhance its wage expectations for suppliers by requiring them to pay a living wage and should also disclose the measures it takes to support this payment. Although the company discloses the proportion of females in global leadership positions, no evidence was found that the company has achieved a minimum of 30% representation of women on its highest governance body. While the company discloses the mean and median pay gap between men and women for its different legal entities in the UK, no evidence was found that the company discloses the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men in its total direct operations workforce.

Act ethically
Cargill could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose a publicly available policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions. The company could also disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.