The challenge of social sustainability
Global value chains depend on people, often from poor and marginalised backgrounds, and people depend on global value chains for their income, livelihoods, and well-being. However, the rights of workers, communities and other people affected by business activity are at risk, with alarming rates of forced labour, child labour and extreme poverty, amongst other challenges.
The abuse of workers’ rights was severe in 2022, with only 3 out of 148 countries showing improvements in this area1. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this trend, leading to a rise in the number of people living in extreme poverty and an increase in the number of working poor2. Additionally, limited resources like land, water and energy are under increasing pressure, impacting our lives.
Social sustainability means putting people first and implementing business practices that contribute to the human dimension of sustainable development3. This has always been at the heart of our promise to protect what’s good: food, people and planet.
Our 2030 strategic ambitions
- Create action plans to address salient human rights risks across our value chain, along with targets and KPIs
- Continue to deliver well-being programmes for employees, support a positive and open safety culture across the company, and work towards reducing accidents and work-related ill health, with zero as the ultimate goal
- Continue to invest in training on inclusive leadership for managers and mentoring programmes driving gender equity and inclusiveness by 2030 compared to 2019
- Sustain investment in Future Talent Programmes and enable world-class training and development for all our employees.
1UN Global Compact: Labour and Decent Work. Source: https://www.unglobalcompact.org/what-is-gc/our-work/social/labour
2Poverty, median incomes and inequality (2021). Source: https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/936001635880885713/pdf/Poverty-Median-Incomes-and-Inequality-in-2021-A-Diverging-Recovery.pdf
3Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/glossary/sustainable-development.html
4Risky environments refer to: "At landfills, waste pickers work in hazardous conditions, are exposed to potentially hazardous materials and toxic fumes, lack personal protective equipment (PPE), and are at risk of severe injury from heavy machinery and vehicles." Source: https://faircircularity.org/fair-circularity-principles/
5Sustainable food systems mean growing, producing, processing, packaging, distributing and consuming food without negatively impacting the planet. Retrieved from OECD. (2019). Accelerating Climate Action. Source: OECD iLibrary