Major food companies in Australia are roundly failing to set adequate targets to reduce their impact on nature and most are not assessing how their supply chains are hitting the environment, according to a first-of-its-kind report from conservationists.
The Future of Food report from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) assessed 20 major food companies across 37 different indicators, from deforestation and pollution to transparency and governance.
Targets to halt damage to nature were “severely lacking”, the report said, and none of the five biggest beef buyers had deforestation targets in line with international best practice.
No company had carried out a risk assessment of their impacts and dependencies on nature, and no companies had science-aligned targets to cut either water use or freshwater pollution.
The findings were an “urgent call to action to Australia’s food businesses to step up to the plate”, the report said.
“We know half of Australia’s economy is dependent on nature, and food companies are among the most dependent. If they’re not addressing these issues, it will come back to bite them,” said Bonnie Graham, the lead author of the report and a corporate campaigner at ACF.
“Companies are just vastly underprepared to assess nature issues in their supply chains. It is clear companies are not addressing nature at this point, it’s clear also that they’re not aware of these either at a board level or through their governance.”
To make its assessment, ACF looked at international best practice across five categories, including targets for nature and pollution and how transparent companies are with disclosures, using standards set by organisations such as Science Based Targets Network, the World Benchmarking Alliance and the International Union for the Conservation for Nature.
Each company was given a percentage score. The three highest scorers were Nestlé (47%), Unilever (32%) and Fonterra (31%).
The three lowest scorers were Hungry Jacks (0%), Sanitarium (0%) and Patties Foods (1%).
Coles scored 28%, Woolworths 26% and Aldi 11%. Aldi was the only supermarket to have a deforestation target that was aligned to international best practice.
Most companies couldn’t track the source of the ingredients they were using and there was a “severe deficit” of company board members with nature expertise, the report said.
“There’s a huge opportunity for companies to position themselves as industry leaders,” Graham said.
The report featured examples of better practice, such as Simplot’s ability to track and source ingredients from farms it owns, or Nestlé’s targets to source 50% of its ingredients from regenerative agriculture methods by 2030.
Next year many companies in Australia will begin mandatory reporting on how they manage risks from climate change, including targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Graham said: “Those mandatory climate disclosures are coming and somewhere down the track we expect something similar on nature disclosures. This is something companies will need to be reporting on.”
ACF said it invited all companies to comment on the report before it was published, and four responded.
Asahi (16%) said its parent company had introduced assessments of climate and nature-related risks, impacts and dependencies across its supply chains.
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Nestlé said care for the environment was a “business imperative” and Unilever highlighted a goal of removing deforestation from its relevant supply chains. Saputo Dairy (19%) was committed to improving its environmental performance.
A Coles spokesperson told Guardian Australia: “We are committed to protecting Australian nature and are engaging with a range of NGOs including Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and the Wilderness Society on a broad range of nature-related issues.
“While we acknowledge this result, we understand there is more to be done and are committed to working with our farmers, suppliers and industry partners to reduce our impact on the environment and help our customers make more responsible choices.”
A Woolworths spokesperson said the report’s results for all companies showed “the frameworks around what ‘nature positive’ means for businesses are still in their infancy, however we are committed to furthering our work on this important topic together with the industry”.
The company has had a “net zero deforestation commitment in place since 2020” and worked with suppliers to “support viable and resilient food systems” and “protect our natural environment”.
In a statement, Sanitarium said it was committed to “operating in a way that makes a sustainable and positive difference to the world in which we live and operate”.
The company’s procurement policies “ensure we only source ingredients from suppliers with ethical and sustainable controls in place that protect people, the environment and the broader community in which they operate”.
Sanitarium said it “conduct[s] our business in an environmentally responsible manner to protect the earth and its natural resources and encourage our suppliers to do the same”.
A Pattis Foods statement said that “sustainability is a core pillar of our strategy” and the company was “committed to reducing our environmental impact, caring for and supporting our communities and maintaining a deep commitment to doing what is right”.
The company had a “strict ethical sourcing policy” and was reducing landfill waste and “moving towards renewable energy”.
Guardian Australia also contacted Hungry Jacks for comment. Aldi declined to comment.