Kyokuyo

Sustainability strategy
Kyokuyo has a sustainability strategy covering its most significant impacts and sustainability topics in relation to both its own operations and its value chain, including environmental, social and traceability issues.

Stakeholder engagement
Kyokuyo discloses the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups and the impacts of these engagement activities on its sustainability strategy.

Lobbying and advocacy
Kyokuyo discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
Kyokuyo discloses that it sources certified seafood since 2006 and has consistently grown its range of certified seafood products. Additionally, the company has a commitment to continue increasing its range of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and Marine eco-label Japan (MEL) certified products.

No leading practices were identified in the traceability area.

No leading practices were identified in the traceability area.

Provide and promote decent work
Kyokuyo has a publicly available statement of policy that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the health and safety of their workers. Additionally, it discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Sustainability strategy
Kyokuyo has an opportunity to disclose its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability topics and impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy. Moreover, even though the company has set some targets across environmental, social and traceability issues, it has an opportunity to improve by reporting consistently against all its targets.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
Kyokuyo disclose that it has a sustainability committee. Yet, it could further clarify if there are specific individuals, teams, or committees dedicated to executing its sustainability strategy. Furthermore, there is an opportunity to assign decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. It could link senior executives’ compensation to sustainability targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Additionally, it could disclose if the board has expertise in its most material seafood sustainability topics.

Stakeholder engagement
Kyokuyo has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities.

Lobbying and advocacy
Kyokuyo 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
Kyokuyo has an opportunity to provide specific data demonstrating its progress towards sourcing and producing sustainable seafood Additionally, it can disclose its set goals for achieving sustainable fisheries and aquaculture across its entire portfolio, and track and report progress towards these goals.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
Since 2021, Kyokuyo has increased the number of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Marine Eco-Label (MEL) Japan certified products. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose its approach for dealing with the ecosystem impacts of the fisheries it sources from that are not certified, for example through engagement in Fishery Improvement Projects (FIPs).

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
Kyokuyo can improve its transparency and sustainability performance by showing how it addresses important issues in aquaculture, such as antibiotic use, aquaculture feed use and animal welfare. The company also has an opportunity to increase its transparency by disclosing information about outbreaks, medicine use, and disease management plans in its aquaculture operations.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
Through its SeaBOS membership, Kyokuyo supports the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST). However, the company could strengthen its commitment by making a time-bound commitment to implement the GDST standard throughout its operations and supply chains. The company could also increase its transparency regarding its traceability system by disclosing the key data elements (KDEs) it that are collected on its seafood products and the verification mechanisms used throughout the supply chain.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
Kyokuyo sources Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified seafood mitigates risks of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in those fisheries. However, the company has an opportunity to demonstrate how its assesses IUU risks across its entire portfolio and how it addresses identified risks.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
Kyokuyo has an opportunity to increase the transparency regarding of its seafood sourcing by presenting an overview of its sourcing, including information such as species, production methods, locations, and management status.

Forced Labour
Kyokuyo 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
Kyokuyo 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 fisher and farmers’ income resilience.

Working and living conditions on board fishing vessels
Kyokuyo has an opportunity to make a public commitment to ensure decent working and living conditions on board fishing vessels within its operations and supply chains. To reinforce this commitment, implementing a monitoring mechanism for compliance is essential. Following the monitoring process, the company can then demonstrate how it effectively mitigates risks and implements improvements where needed.

Respect human rights
Kyokuyo has a publicly available policy statement supporting international norms regarding human rights, as well as specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain. It, however, has an opportunity to use a stronger language to turn these statements into a formal commitment, and reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, while it states that it identifies human rights risks pertaining to its business activities, it can describe the process for identifying human rights risks and impacts covering its operations and supply chain. It could further describe how it assesses and identifies its salient human rights issues. While the company discloses that it remediates human rights violations, it could disclose a global system to act on all its salient human rights issues in all its activities.

Provide and promote decent work
Kyokuyo states that it strives to maintain a healthy and safe workplace environment and expects its suppliers to cooperate in its monitoring activities. It thus has an opportunity to use stronger language to show a commitment to health and safety and disclose how it monitors supplier performance.

Additionally, while the company pays wages in compliance with local labor laws, it has an opportunity to commit to paying a living wage by setting a time-bound target. Related, the company has expectations on the wage paid by its suppliers and could add a requirement for them to pay a living wage and disclose how it supports the payment.

Moreover, while the company is committed to diversity, equitable employment and women’s empowerment, it has an opportunity to commit to gender equality, and formalise these commitments in a policy document. It could further disclose related time-bound targets and divulge information on the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men.

Act ethically
While Kyokuyo strives to prevent corruption, it has an opportunity to use a stronger language to turn the statement into a formal commitment. It could describe the process for identifying its bribery and corruption risks and impacts and include related clauses in its contracts with business relationships. Although a mechanism exists for stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns, it could disclose that it is accessible to all stakeholders, and that complainants have the option to identify themselves or remain anonymous. Moreover, Kyokuyo has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach and disclose its expenditure on lobbying activities. While it states that it makes political donations in compliance with relevant laws, it has an opportunity to disclose whether these are made only by exception, declare the criteria for making these exceptions, and mention about other political contributions apart from donations.