Bakkavor Group PLC

During the year, the ESG Committee witnessed firsthand how the increased ownership and oversight of our Trusted Partner objectives have driven improvements in three of our four non-financial KPIs – food waste, UK accidents and UK turnover. [...] The Board-level ESG Committee was promptly informed of the issue, and thanks to Bakkavor's quarterly emissions measurement, we were able to assess the impact and understand the actions being taken to prevent a recurrence in the future. [...] Through the ESG Committee, we will continue to oversee these roadmaps, with a particular focus on our climate transition planning. [...] As net operational emissions are part of our Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP), this ensures continued senior level accountability for delivery. [...] The ESG Committee continues to see Bakkavor collaborating with customers on ESG topics. [...] At Bakkavor, we have continued accountability for ESG within the business through a clear governance structure. We have established Board-level responsibility for ESG since 2022. The ESG Committee met three times in the year to review progress and ensure oversight of Trusted Partner. In addition, the Committee received training on decarbonisation and climate transition plans. [...] Detailed activities of the Committee can be found in our Annual Report.

Our Responsible Sourcing strategy is overseen by a Steering Committee chaired by our UK Procurement Director. It reports to our ESG Executive Committee, tracking progress against our commitments and wider supplier engagement programme. It comprises representatives across Procurement, Technical and other specialist external support. The Steering Committee use a bespoke supplier risk management system based on supplier data and global intelligence sources. [...] Group carbon emissions and UK food waste are two of our core non-financial KPIs, and are therefore reported to the ESG Executive Committee and Management Board, and on a quarterly basis to the ESG Board Committee. [...] In 2022, we formalised Board level responsibility for ESG, initially through a combined ESG and Nomination Committee in January, and then through a dedicated ESG Committee in June, which met a further two times during the year. In addition, the Committee received training covering topics including climate and Net Zero, sourcing issues including deforestation, food waste and packaging.

Describe the process(es) your organization has in place to ensure that your engagement activities are consistent with your overall climate change strategy[…]In 2021 we formalised our commitment to Net Zero emissions across our UK, US and China operations by 2040, supporting the outcomes of the Paris Agreement and the objective to limit global warming to well below 2°c and aiming for 1.5°c. We set ourselves this target to galvanise the business around the imperative to act and support the food industry in leading on this issue. We have also committed to reducing our emissions per £m revenue year on year.

In 2019, we signed up to the goals of The UK Plastics Pact for our UK business as they closely align to our goals and those of our UK customers. In 2020 we have continued to make strong progress against the 2025 targets by working closely with our customers to explore ways to eliminate unnecessary plastic packaging, light-weighting packaging, substituting for alternatives and increasing recycled content. To support the UK Plastic Pact's shared industry goals we have committed to 100% of our plastics packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable.

We have also committed to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Champions 12.3 initiative to halve food waste across the supply chain by 2030.

Our Trusted Partner is our ESG strategy guides progress towards these goals. The framework of the strategy is build around three focus areas that represent our businesses' value chain: Responsible Sourcing in our Supply Chain, Sustainability and Innovation in our Operations, and Engagement and Wellbeing in our Workplaces and Communities. The Group ESG Executive Committee coordinates and manages the integration our Trusted Partner strategy; chaired by the Head of Corporate Affairs. Overall ownership of the ESG strategy sits with our Chief People Officer, supported by our CFO as Board sponsor.