Charoen Pokphand Group

Sustainability strategy
Charoen Pokphand Group discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts, including ecosystems, traceability and social issues, as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy. Furthermore, it reports consistently against all its targets.

Stakeholder engagement
Charoen Pokphand Group discloses how it engages with stakeholders, the issues raised during such activities, and the outcomes of its stakeholder engagement, beyond materiality assessment. Moreover, its stakeholder engagement activities cover ecosystems, traceability and social issues.

Lobbying and advocacy
Charoen Pokphand Group discloses some trade associations of which it is a member.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
Charoen Pokphand Group demonstrates a commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture by adhering to environmental sourcing criteria.

No leading practices were identified in the traceability area.

Forced Labour
Charoen Pokphand Group 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
Charoen Pokphand Group reports on the impacts of its projects on farmers’ income.

Respect human rights
Charoen Pokphand Group has a publicly available policy statement that commits it to respecting human rights. It actively engages with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities and discloses examples. Further, the company demonstrates that it has a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to workers and other external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by its operations.

Provide and promote decent work
Charoen Pokphand Group has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers, as well as a statement expecting its suppliers to make the same commitment. Further Charoen Pokphand Group discloses quantitative information on the health and safety of its own workers and describes how it monitors the performance of its suppliers on the issue. Charoen Pokphand Group also discloses that 100% of its total direct operations workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements. Further, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category as well as a commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Act ethically
Charoen Pokphand Group demonstrates a public commitment to safeguarding personal data and provides a privacy statement outlining its use. Additionally, the company discloses a policy that prohibits bribery and corruption and provides a grievance mechanism in place for stakeholders to raise related issues. Lastly, the company is transparent about its lobbying expenditures by disclosing these publicly.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
Charoen Pokphand Group discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability performance but can further link this policy to enhancements in ecosystems, traceability and social issues. Furthermore, there is an opportunity for the company to disclose whether its highest governance body has specific expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
Charoen Pokphand Group has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Additionally, it can report any (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
While Charoen Pokphand Group demonstrates a commitment to sustainable seafood, there is an opportunity for the company to present measurable evidence of an increase in sustainable fishing and aquaculture practices. To achieve this, the company can disclose specific targets for achieving sustainable seafood across its entire portfolio, and regularly reporting on its progress towards these targets.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
Charoen Pokphand Group discloses sources from certified fisheries and supports Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs). The company states that 56.9% of its fishmeal come from MarinTrust certified fisheries and 12.9% come from fisheries under a FIP. Nevertheless, there exists an opportunity to disclose the percentage of certified fisheries that the company source fish oil from. In addition, the company can improve its performance by reporting progress of the FIPs.

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
Charoen Pokphand Group reports forage fish dependency ratio (FFDR) of its fishmeal coming from Thailand, however, there is no evidence that the company reports the FFDR for its entire fishmeal and fish oil supply chain. Moreover, the company has an opportunity to report on the use of trimmings in its aquaculture feed as well as a set a target for the use of alternative feed ingredients. Furthermore, Charoen Pokphand Group could disclose information on key impacts in aquaculture including outbreaks, medicine use, and disease management plans.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
Through its SeaBOS membership, Charoen Pokphand Group supports the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST). Furthermore, the company has certified chain of custody for the marine feed ingredients coming from MarinTrust certified sources. The company has the opportunity to enhance its traceability efforts by setting a time-bound target to implement the GDST standards for its seafood products and marine feed ingredients. The company could provide more information about the current system it uses for tracking and verifying the origins of seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
Charoen Pokphand Group 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 to assesses IUU risks across all the fisheries it sources from, disclosing the results of these risk assessments along with measures it takes to address identified risks.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
Charoen Pokphand Group has an opportunity to increase its transparency regarding the sourcing of its seafood products. The company can improve by disclosing an overview of its seafood operations and sourcing, including information about species, geographic location, and management status.

Forced Labour
The company has an opportunity to indicate how it is building the capacity of its suppliers to prevent forced labour impacts.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
The company has set up initiatives to improve the sustainability of the farms it sources from but it could demonstrate how it improves fishers and 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
Charoen Pokphand Group has a policy to ensure decent working and living conditions on board fishing vessels. However, there is an opportunity for the company to further strengthen its practices by publicly presenting the results of its monitoring and follow-up actions taken based on the monitoring results.

Respect human rights
The company has an opportunity to disclose a policy statement committing it to respect the human rights that the ILO has declared to be fundamental rights at work, and publicly expect its suppliers to make the same commitment. Further, Charoen Pokphand Group can increase disclosure on its process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts across its supply chain.

Provide and promote decent work
Charoen Pokphand Group has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage, and describe how it determines a living wage for the regions where it operates. Furthermore, it could disclose how it works to support the payment of a living wage by its suppliers. Finally, the company has an opportunity to 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.

Act ethically
Charoen Pokphand Group could disclose that it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships, as well as describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts. Further, the company has an opportunity to disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy document, as well as specify that it does not make political contributions.