Royal Greenland

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

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
Royal Greenland has a commitment to sustainable seafood and provides evidence of increasing the percentage of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified seafood in its portfolio up to 63% in 2022. The company also has a target to source 75% of its products from MSC certified seafood by 2030 and reports against this target.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
Royal Greenland has provided evidence of increasing the percentage of Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified seafood in its portfolio up to 63% in 2022.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
Royal Greenland demonstrates that it has a risk assessment tool in place to conduct illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing risk assessments across 100% of its operations and supply chain. However, the company could further improve in this area by disclosing the results of its risk assessment and the steps it takes to address and mitigate identified high IUU risks.

No leading practices were identified in the social responsibility area.

Respect human rights
Royal Greenland has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights, which is approved by the highest governance body. The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respecting the human rights that the ILO has declared to be fundamental rights at work, which is approved by the highest governance body, and 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
Royal Greenland has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect the health and safety of workers and 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, the company discloses one or more time-bound targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and 44 percent of its board are women.

Act ethically
Royal Greenland has a policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships.

Sustainability strategy
Royal Greenland reports progress against all the targets it has set. However, the company has an opportunity to develop additional time-bound, quantitative targets that more comprehensively cover key sustainability topics such as biodiversity and traceability. Another opportunity in this area for the company is to renew its materiality assessment, which was last conducted in 2018-2019.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
Royal Greenland 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
Royal Greenland discloses that it engages with its stakeholders as a part of materiality assessment. However, it has an opportunity to improve in this area by disclosing an overview of the issues raised by different groups of stakeholders.

Lobbying and advocacy
Royal Greenland has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing 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
Royal Greenland has a commitment to sustainable seafood through its sustainable fisheries policy. Moreover, the company has a target to achieve 75% Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified seafood by 2030 and 95% sustainable seafood by 2030 but without disclosing the criteria it uses to define “sustainable”. Royal Greenland reports against those targets. However, the company could improve by disclosing how ecosystems impacts are addressed (if needed) in fisheries that are not in a FIP or certified. With regards to aquaculture, the company sources a small volume of farmed Atlantic Salmon which is either Global G.A.P. or Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) certified, however it is unclear what percentage of its entire aquaculture portfolio is certified.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
Royal Greenland sources from MSC certified fisheries, reaching 63% of its portfolio in 2022. The company is or has been involved in several fishery improvement projects (FIPs), notably in the Canadian lobster fishery and the West Greenland coastal halibut fishery. Through its membership in Sustainable Fisheries Greenland, the company actively supports the MSC certification of Greenland fisheries. Furthermore, the company discloses that 93% of their raw material is sustainable, according to their internal assessment but without specifying what criteria it uses to define sustainability. Therefore, the company has an opportunity to improve by disclosing how its entire portfolio is performing based on a transparent set of sustainability criteria.

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
Royal Greenland has an animal welfare policy and sources from certified operations; however, it has an opportunity to improve by setting specific targets and reporting progress on issues related to animal welfare across its supply chain. Another area in which the company can improve further is in the area of antibiotic use and growth-promoting substances by publishing a policy and targets focused on reducing the prophylactic use of antibiotics and/or growth promoting substances.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
Royal Greenland sources from several MSC certified fisheries which guarantees Chain of Custody. Additionally, Royal Greenland collects several key data elements (KDEs) within its traceability system, including information such as species, geographical origin and vessel name. Nonetheless, the company could strengthen its commitment to traceability by making the Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) standard and disclosing a timebound implementation plan.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
Royal Greenland discloses a general overview of the source of its seafood products and marine feed ingredients. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose 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
Royal Greenland states that its suppliers may not engage in any form of forced labour or retain any elements of an employee’s pay, benefits, property, or documents in order to force the employee to continue to work for the supplier. Additionally, the company also has a policy on recruitment for migrant workers which prohibits the use of recruitment fees. However, the company has an opportunity to strengthen its language around these issues as well as to guarantee that these policies cover all employees (not only migrant workers) as well as all its own operations in addition to suppliers’.

Farmer and fisher livelihoods
Royal Greenland 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 fishers’ income resilience.

Working and living conditions on board fishing vessels
Royal Greenland could improve its performance by monitoring working and living conditions on its fishing vessels, disclosing the results of its monitoring, and demonstrating how it mitigates risks and implements improvements where needed.

Respect human rights
While Royal Greenland has a public commitment to respecting human rights, it could take the opportunity to disclose its processes to identify, assess and take action on its salient human rights risks and impacts, and how it engages with affected stakeholders, in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Human Rights.

Provide and promote decent work
While Royal Greenland has a commitment to respect the health and safety of workers, it could add to this by disclosing all quantitative information on health and safety for its workers in line with GRI 403-9. Furthermore, it could disclose a time-bound target for paying all workers a living wage or that it has achieved paying all workers a living wage, and how it determines a living wage where it operates. It could also take the 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
Royal Greenland could describe its processes to identify its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations and indicate that it has a confidential and anonymous mechanism accessible to all stakeholders to raise bribery and corruption concerns and complaints without fear of reprisals. Additionally, the company could also take the opportunity to disclose a publicly available policy statement setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach, specify that it does not make political contributions and disclose its expenditures on lobbying activities.