Ferrero

Lobbying and advocacy
The company discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member.

Stakeholder engagement
The company’s stakeholder engagement activities cover nature, including biodiversity, nutrition and social areas.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company aims to reduce its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2023, from a 2018 baseline year. Moreover, these targets are in line with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Ecosystem conversion
The company discloses some activities to achieve conversion-free supply chains and discloses the proportion of high-risk commodities such as coffee, soy and palm oil which are conversion-free.

Plastic use and packaging waste
The company demonstrates commitment to reducing plastic use and transitioning towards sustainable packaging through its policies and activities. Additionally, it discloses quantitative data regarding its efforts in reducing plastic use and implementing sustainable packaging practices.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its hazelnut farming.

Water withdrawal
The company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations.

Food safety
The company provides evidence that 100% of its own operations are certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)-recognised food safety scheme.

Responsible marketing
The company has a responsible marketing policy specifically designed for children and demonstrates adherence to this policy through third-party audits.

Child labour
In Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana, the company has set up child protection systems which provide solutions if cases of child labour have been detected such as assisting in issuing birth certificates and facilitating access to social services or schools. Furthermore, it reports on the implementation of these systems on the ground.

Forced labour
The company is transparent about its efforts to address forced labour in Malaysia within its palm oil supply chain and provides related examples. For instance, it supported one of its direct palm oil suppliers in promoting ethical recruitment practices through a partnership with Earthworm.

Act ethically
The company discloses a public commitment to protect personal data as well as a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption. Furthermore, the company includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with direct business relationships and reserves the right to terminate the commercial agreement if non-compliance is found. It also specifies that it does not make political contributions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company has a publicly available policy statement in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of workers and expects its business relationships to make the same commitment. It also discloses how it monitors the health and safety performance of its business relationships. The company requires its suppliers to provide all employees with a fair and competitive salary in line with the relevant ILO Conventions and supports its suppliers to do so. The company complies with the applicable laws and supports ILO Conventions on working hours and rest periods and expects its suppliers to comply with the same conventions. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect human rights. In terms of human rights due diligence, it describes the process for identifying its human rights risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations as well as its supply chain. Further, it discloses the results of its human rights risk assessments and its global system to take action to prevent, mitigate or remediate salient human rights issues.

The company engages with stakeholders whose human rights have been or may be affected by its activities by means of a human rights grievance mechanism accessible to all workers, as well as all external stakeholders who may be adversely impacted by the company.

Governance and accountability for sustainable development
The company has an opportunity to link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover environmental and social issues. Furthermore, it could disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Lobbying and advocacy
The company 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.

Stakeholder engagement
The company 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, including frequencies and channels, for engaging with stakeholder groups, beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainable development strategy
The company discloses certain sustainability objectives/targets, including those related to climate and social inclusion. However, there is an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. While the company reports on some of their targets, including those related to climate, it could report consistently across all its targets.

Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
The company can lower its own greenhouse scope 1 and 2 gas emissions as these have increased compared to last year. Further, it could reduce its scope 3 emissions. The company aims to cut emissions for all these scopes by 43% per product ton by 2030. However, this specific goal doesn’t consider the intensity of emissions. It also has the chance to report progress toward these Scope 3 targets, which could align with a 1.5-degree climate goal.

Ecosystem conversion
While the company has a target to achieve conversion-free supply chains, it could disclose specific actions on engaging suppliers, developing alternative land-use practices, and investing in sustainable sourcing. Moreover, the company has the opportunity to showcase dedicated resources and KPIs for monitoring progress.

Soil health and agrobiodiversity
The company has an opportunity to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and report progress against it.

Water withdrawal
The company has an opportunity to disclose a time-bound target to reduce water withdrawal across its own operations and report progress against the target. While the company expresses its intention to collaborate with suppliers in order to reduce water withdrawal, there is room for improvement by reporting on its engagement processes and providing evidence of these efforts.

Accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods
The company has an opportunity to disclose its commitment and commercial activities to improve the accessibility and affordability of nutritious foods.

Availability of nutritious foods
The company discloses examples of reformulated products and controlled portion sizes. However, there is potential for improvement in reporting its overall efforts to reduce sugar, salt, and fat, and/or increase the presence of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in its entire portfolio. Additionally, there is an opportunity for the company to adopt a nutrient profiling system and to set a sales-based target to increase the proportion of more nutritious products, aligning with government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

Food safety
The company has an opportunity to disclose the percentage of food suppliers certified to a GFSI-recognised food safety scheme.

Responsible marketing
The company has an opportunity to provide evidence of marketing activities to promote healthier and more nutritious food options in accordance with a government-endorsed or externally validated nutritional guidelines.

Child labour
The company prohibits its suppliers from using child labour and has in place a suppliers’ assessment through Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA). However, it could enhance its disclosure by clarifying that the SMETA assessments consistently include age verification for all suppliers. While the company does provide quantitative data on its efforts to combat child labour, it could highlight an analysis of trends that demonstrates progress in eradicating child labour from its supply chain. Moreover, it has an opportunity to disclose examples of remediation programmes when a case of child labour is found in its operations.

Forced labour
For its value chain, the company discloses its goal is to ensure all employees enjoy freedom of movement and that their identity documents are not retained. However, it could strengthen its wording around these commitments to translate them into clear requirements. Further, it discloses that it supports ethical recruitment practices aligned with the Employer Pays Principle. However, it could disclose a prohibition to pay recruitment fees for its operations and supply chain. To conclude, it has an opportunity to provide an analysis of trends demonstrating progress in relation to eliminating forced labour from its supply chain.

Land rights
The company could require its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rightsholders when acquiring, leasing or making other arrangements to use land, paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rightsholders, and negotiating with them to provide adequate compensation.

Act ethically
The company has an anti-bribery and corruption policy. However, it could describe the process to identify its bribery and corruption risks and impacts in specific locations or activities covering its own operations. Moreover, while the company has a mechanism for employees to raise related concerns with the option to identify themselves or remain anonymous, it is unclear if this mechanism is accessible to all stakeholders including external stakeholders.

The company has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach while requiring third-party lobbyists to comply with this policy. The company discloses some information regarding its lobbying expenditures but has an opportunity to disclose the expenditures in all locations where it carries out lobbying activities or to specify it only does so in specific countries or regions.

Provide and promote decent work
While the company sets a goal to provide all employees with a fair and competitive salary in line with the relevant ILO Conventions on wages, it 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. While the company has a statement that it treats all employees equally and has a zero-tolerance approach to any form of discrimination, it has an opportunity to disclose a public commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The company states that it has a target to increase the representation of the women in decision-making roles by 2030, but could disclose the percentage increase that it is striving for.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respecting the right not to be subject to discrimination and forced labour, and expects its suppliers to make the same commitment. However, it has an opportunity to use stronger language in its statements on child labour and freedom of association to turn them into formal commitments. The company discloses its salient human rights issues but has an opportunity to disclose the process for assessing saliency of these risks more clearly.