High Liner Foods

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

No leading practices were identified in the ecosystems area.

No leading practices were identified in the traceability area.

No leading practices were identified in the social responsibility area.

Respect human rights
High Liner Foods has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights, which is approved by the highest governance body, and a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the human rights that the ILO has declared to be fundamental rights at work.

Provide and promote decent work
High Liner Foods has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect the health and safety of workers, expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers, and it discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. Additionally, it has a public expectation that its business relationships shall not require workers to work more than 48 hours in a regular work week or 60 hours including overtime. It also discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by gender.

Act ethically
High Liner Foods has a publicly available policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption and has a publicly available grievance mechanism for all stakeholders to raise concerns regarding bribery and corruption without fear of reprisals.

Sustainability strategy
High Liner Foods has an opportunity to improve in this area by defining time-bound targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain, and reporting on their progress.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
High Liner Foods has several opportunities to increase accountability for its sustainability strategy. For example, it can link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to its sustainability targets and objectives. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Stakeholder engagement
High Liner Foods 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 for engaging with stakeholder groups, beyond its materiality assessment.

Lobbying and advocacy
High Liner Foods has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing the alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets. Similarly, the company can increase its transparency efforts by reporting (potential) misalignments between the lobbying activities of its trade associations and its sustainability targets.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
High Liner Foods has a commitment to sustainable seafood through its sourcing policy which defines criteria for responsibly sourced seafood, including certifications, fishery improvement projects and seafood ratings. Furthermore, the company provides quantitative evidence of increasing the percentage of seafood products that meet its sourcing policy from 96% in 2019 to 98% in 2021. The company has an opportunity to improve by disclosing which proportions of its portfolio are covered by each certification scheme, improvement project or other sustainability programme.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
High Liner Foods disclose that it sources from fisheries that are Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified, green or yellow rated or engage in a fishery improvement project (FIP). However, the company has an opportunity to provide a breakdown of its portfolio by species and sustainability criteria (e.g., certified vs. in a FIP). Moreover, the company could also specify which Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs) it is involved in or supports.

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
High Liner Foods does not disclose a policy or target on the use of antibiotics in its aquaculture supply chains. The company therefore has an opportunity to review the issue of antibiotics in its supply chain and develop a policy and targets to reduce the use of antibiotics classified as medically importance across all species and geographies. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to also develop a policy and targets around issues of animal welfare.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
High Liner Foods has a commitment to traceable seafood disclosed in its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Policy. The company could strengthen its commitment to traceability by endorsing the GDST standard and disclosing a time-bound target and associated action plan for its implementation. For its wild seafood products, the company traces the following KDEs: the country of catch, fishery, gear type and certification and Fishery Improvement Projects (FIP) status for every seafood product.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
By sourcing from certified fisheries, High Liner Foods mitigates illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) risk in those fisheries. However, no evidence was found that the company has assessed the risks of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) across its entire portfolio. Therefore, thhe company has an opportunity to demonstrate how it assesses IUU risks across its seafood portfolio and address identified risks.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
Although High Liner Foods has a profile on the Ocean Disclosure Project (ODP), it has not provided updated information since 2019. The company could improve this by publicly disclosing updated information for a full overview of the sources of all its products, including additional information such as management status, geographic location, species and production method.

Forced Labour
High Liner Foods 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
High Liner Foods has an opportunity to identify living income benchmarks and assess living income gaps for some commodities and regions. Also, it could adopt procurement practices and develop supply chain relationships that improve farmers’ and fishers’ income resilience.

Working and living conditions on board fishing vessels
High Liner Foods has a supplier code of conduct that applies to any location of business, including fishing vessels, which states that High Liner Foods is committed to ensuring safe working conditions and the suppliers are treated with respect. Higher Liner Foods has an opportunity to demonstrate how it monitors compliance through office visits and vessel inspection as well as showing how improvements could be implemented across 100% of its operations.

Respect human rights
High Liner Foods has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respecting the right not to be subject to discrimination, it could take the opportunity to also commit to prohibiting forced and child labour and respecting the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, in line with the ILO core labour standards. With regard to human rights due diligence, the company could disclose its processes for identifying, assessing and taking action to address its salient human rights risks, and how it engages with affected and potentially affected stakeholders. Furthermore, it could ensure that when workers and external individuals raise issues through available grievance mechanisms, they have the choice to identify themselves or remain anonymous.

Provide and promote decent work
While High Liner Foods has a public commitment to protecting the health and safety of its workers, it could also disclose quantitative information on health and safety for its workers. It could also disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage, as well as how it determines a living wage. It could also take the opportunity to make a public commitment to women’s empowerment and disclose a time-bound target on gender equality and women’s empowerment and 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
While High Liner Foods has a public policy that prohibits bribery and corruption, it could disclose its process to identify risks of bribery and corruption and include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. Furthermore, it could take the opportunity to disclose its tax strategy and the governance body that is accountable for compliance with the strategy.