What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Univar Solutions identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, diversity and equal opportunity, effluents and waste, occupational health and safety. Among these, promoting sustainability across its supply chain stands out as a key material issue for Univar Solutions.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Univar Solutions engages with:

To identify and prioritise material topics Univar Solutions engaged with its stakeholders through the following channels: 

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Customers	·      On-demand technical expertise ·      Sales team engagement in sustainability issues ·      Customer feedback surveys ·      Sustainability focused collaborations and joint programmes
Suppliers	·      Supplier surveys ·      Supplier auditing ·      Sustainability focused cooperation
Employees	·      Training and education ·      Competency and skills development ·      Safety stand down events ·      Employee resource networks ·      Colleague wellbeing initiatives ·      Organised charitable events ·      Global employee surveys and feedback ·      Senior management question sessions ·      All-employee meetings
Investors and Shareholders	·      Shareholder focused sustainability engagements ·      Financial reporting ·      Investor information area
Governing Bodies	·      Committee participation and policy informing ·      Emergency scenario training ·      Auditing and compliance
Industry Groups	·      Committee participation and information sharing ·      Collaborative projects ·      Transparent reporting
Unions	·      Chairing committees ·      Collective bargaining agreements ·      Progressive Code of Conduct
Local Communities	·      Charity and fundraising ·      Educational sponsorship ·      Community development

What actions were taken by Univar Solutions to promote sustainability across its supply chain?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Univar Solutions reports that it took the following actions for promoting sustainability across its supply chain:

• Assessing suppliers
• In 2017, Univar Solutions set out to develop an extended assessment process for suppliers and service providers to bring additional considerations into its supplier assessment in the areas of quality, safety, environmental, social, and ethical areas. Within this, the social and ethical aspects include, but are not limited to, the ILO (International Labour Organization) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. In 2018, Univar Solutions achieved this and introduced this to all new suppliers across EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), reviewing all existing suppliers over a five-year period. The addition of these assessment topics added meaningful additional transparency to Univar Solutions’ processes and helped it identify risks related to suppliers’ sustainability performance. Through 2019, Univar Solutions continued to expand the use of its supplier assessments to all regions and aims to assess 100% of new product suppliers on these criteria.

• Implementing a supplier Code of Conduct
• Univar Solutions is working to establish a globally applicable supplier Code of Conduct. This key resource will be made available to Univar Solutions’ indirect procurement supply chain over a phased introduction. The establishment of this process will elevate the prominence of sustainable supply chain practices across the geographies and industries in which Univar Solutions Following the key aspects of its global Code of Conduct, Univar Solutions will be working to set out its clear expectations of its suppliers in addition to the existing direct supplier assessments it carries out.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria

2) Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria

 

Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria does not correspond to any SDG.

Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Univar Solutions, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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