FCF Co., Ltd.

Sustainability strategy
FCF Co., Ltd 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.

Stakeholder engagement
FCF Co., Ltd discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities and states the channels it uses to engage with its stakeholder groups. Furthermore, the company’s stakeholder engagement covers ecosystems, traceability and social issues.

Lobbying and advocacy
FCF Co., Ltd discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member wherever it operates.

Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture
FCF Co., Ltd demonstrates a strong commitment to sustainable fishing and aquaculture by providing qualitative evidence in accordance with environmental sourcing criteria.

No leading practices were identified in the traceability area.

No leading practices were identified in the social responsibility area.

Provide and promote decent work
FCF Co., Ltd has a publicly available statement of policy in which it commits to respecting the health and safety of its workers and extends the same expectation to its business relationships. Moreover, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce for each employee category.

Act ethically
FCF Co., Ltd has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints regarding bribery and corruption.

Sustainability strategy
FCF Co., Ltd has an opportunity to disclose group-wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain and to report consistently against all its targets.

Accountability for sustainability strategy
FCF Co., Ltd 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.

Stakeholder engagement
FCF Co., Ltd has an opportunity to explain how it has responded to key issues raised by each stakeholder group and disclose specific outcomes implemented to respond to key issues for each stakeholder group, beyond materiality assessment.

Lobbying and advocacy
FCF Co., Ltd has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing the 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
Although FCF Co., Ltd has a general commitment to sustainable seafood, there is room for improvement by disclosing specific targets for sustainable seafood across its entire portfolio and regularly reporting on its progress towards these targets.

Ecosystem impacts of fisheries
For its tuna portfolio, FCF Co., Ltd states that 66% is Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified and 21% is engaged in a Fishery Improvement Project (FIPs). Nevertheless, there exists an opportunity for the company to report how it is addressing the impacts of the fisheries it sources that are not certified or engaged in a FIP (and not limited to tuna fisheries).

Ecosystem impacts of aquaculture
FCF Co., Ltd does not disclose information about its requirements regarding antibiotics for the aquaculture products it or its subsidiaries source. The company has an opportunity to improve by disclosing a policy or target on the use of antibiotics for its aquaculture products. 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.

Traceability systems and commitments for seafood products and aquaculture feed ingredients
Even though FCF Co., Ltd previously engaged in the Global Dialogue for Seafood Traceability (GDST) it does not have a public commitment to traceable seafood. It can therefore strengthen its commitment by setting a time-bound target to implement the GDST standards in its operations and supply chain. The company sources from certified operations which implies Chain of Custody certification is in place in for those products and uses a JD Edwards (JDE) system for its traceability. However, it can improve its transparency by disclosing which key data elements it collects and the progress it is making towards the implementation of the GDST standards.

Risk-based approach to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
FCF Co., Ltd has 66% of its tuna products Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified, which is a way of mitigating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) risks for this part of their porfolio. Furthermore, it states that its traceability system automatically verifies whether source vessels have valid licenses and registrations with an alert system for violation records from the global IUU list. However, the company has an opportunity to disclose how it assesses IUU risks in its operations and supply chain and how it addresses any identified risks.

Disclosure of the source of seafood products and marine feed ingredients
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Forced Labour
FCF Co., Ltd 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
While FCF Co., Ltd indicates it has assessed living income gaps, it has an opportunity to describe how it assesses them and disclose which living income benchmarks it has identified.

Working and living conditions on board fishing vessels
FCF Co., Ltd has a Supplier Social Requirement for Vessel Owners document where it requires its supplier vessels to follow several social requirements regarding working and living conditions on-board fishing vessels. The company demonstrates that it monitors compliance through office visits and vessel inspection. However, the company has an opportunity to demonstrate how improvements are implemented based on the findings of its monitoring process.

Respect human rights
While FCF Co., Ltd commits to uphold specific workers’ rights in its operations and supply chain, an opportunity exists to declare a policy statement affirming its commitment to human rights, and reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work.

Additionally, although the company identifies human rights concerns within its supply chain and engages with relevant stakeholders, there is an opportunity to provide a comprehensive account of its procedure for identifying human rights risks and assessing their impacts across all activities and the supply chain. Further elaboration on how it evaluates and identifies salient human rights issues is also warranted. Furthermore, as the company conducts third-party audits and presents evidence of its management of various human rights matters, there is a potential to unveil a global system for addressing all its salient human rights issues throughout all activities.

Provide and promote decent work
FCF Co., Ltd has an opportunity to disclose its supplier health and safety monitoring process. Additionally, while the company asserts adherence to local wage laws and commits to providing a living wage to its workers, there is room to establish time-bound target for achieving this wage and clarify the determination of living wage in each region. Likewise, while it expects its supplier to also adhere to local wage laws, it can extend the expectation of a living wage to suppliers and detail its support in implementing this payment.

Furthermore, while the company is dedicated to diversity and equal employment opportunities, it could explicitly commit to gender equality and women’s empowerment. This includes setting related time-bound targets, as well as disclosing data on women’s representation on the board and the ratio of women’s basic salary and remuneration compared to men’s.

Act ethically
FCF Co., Ltd has a process for identifying bribery and corruption but has an opportunity disclose comprehensively details of this process. Relatedly, it has an opportunity to include anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its contracts with business relationships. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to have a policy setting out its lobbying and political engagement approach. It could further disclose a publicly available policy statement that specifies that it does not make political contributions and divulge its expenditures on lobbying activities.