Companies must be aware of the effects of their operations on human rights, both near and far. Our operations have an impact, in particular, on the human rights of customers, employees and the employees of the providers of products and services within the supply chain.

Our human rights principles describe how we identify and assess the impact of our activities on human rights. In addition, they indicate the practices we have to minimise and eliminate any adverse impact. Read more about the principles here.

From our customers’ perspective, the most essential human rights are non-discrimination, the right to health and children’s right to special protection. Above all, non-discrimination means the equal treatment of customers.

We play special attention to making our locations and services as safe and accessible as possible. We ensure product safety through careful self-monitoring, such as the monitoring of the cold chain. In addition to ensuring product safety, we safeguard children’s rights by enforcing age limits, for example.

From our employees’ perspective, the most essential human rights include occupational safety, equality and non-discrimination. We also respect employees’ right to join trade unions and do not tolerate any kind of discrimination or harassment.

In addition, our operations have an indirect impact on the human rights of the employees in the supply chains of products and services. We use third-party audits to monitor occupational safety and the implementation of employees’ freedom of association and other labour rights, particularly in countries that are high-risk in terms of social responsibility.

To supplement traditional audits, we introduced the Radical Transparency model in 2018. This is a new type of research model that examines the root causes of human rights issues. It enables us to address current issues related to products and production countries in more detail and seek new types of effective solutions in cooperation with our partners. We publish the results of these studies.

The first Radical Transparency study was carried out by Oxfam, an independent non-governmental organisation, in the Foggia region in southern Italy. You can download the report The people behind the prices here.

We have worked for a long time to ensure responsible procurement. Our procurement operations are guided by the principle of non-discrimination, product-specific quality requirements and a commitment to respecting human and labour rights in purchases made from high-risk countries.

In the procurement of our private label products, responsibility and product safety are ensured throughout the process. Our procurement contracts require the providers and manufacturers of raw materials to comply with the requirements of the law and collective labour agreements, human rights and international minimum labour standards.

It is important for us to disclose the origin of products to the customer as transparently and conveniently as possible. For this reason, the packaging of food products in S Group’s Rainbow, Kotimaista and X-tra lines provides information about both the country of manufacture and the country of origin of the product’s main raw material. Information about the country of manufacture is also included on the packaging or care instructions of private label consumer goods, such as household textiles and clothes.

In addition, we publish the factory information for our private label and imported textiles annually.

We have joined the Business Environmental Performance Initiative (BEPI) programme. BEPI is a programme of the Foreign Trade Association (FTA) for assessing and developing the environmental effects of production plants. In the BEPI programme, production plants are provided with guidance on environmental management, for example, and on improving the efficiency of energy and water use, processing waste and reducing emissions.

We have participated in developing the BEPI programme since 2012. Some of our suppliers have already received training through the programme. The next step is to further specify the plans to implement BEPI.

We are committed to using sustainably produced palm oil. S Group’s goal is to only use physically certified palm oil traceable to palm oil plantations in private label products and in deep-frying oil in restaurants by 2021.

We have been a member of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) since 2011. RSPO’s criteria for palm oil plantations include the conservation of biodiversity and the improvement of operations through ethical and ecological standards.

In practice, the production of more responsible palm oil means that plantations have environmental management plans, fire is not used for clearing in the plantation area, employees have freedom of association, valuable natural forests are not felled and issues related to land ownership and use have been resolved.

The S Group commits to the responsible use of soy. The Group’s aim is that the risk origin soy used as an ingredient in the own brand products, and all the risk origin soy feed used in the production chain of ingredients of animal origin in the own brand products (meat, fish, dairy, eggs) will be certified by the end of 2021.

The soy used in dishes served in the restaurants and cafés, as well as the risk origin soy used in the production chain of ingredients of animal origin (meat, fish, dairy, eggs) will also be certified by the end of 2021.

Responsible soy certificates are Round table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) and ProTerra. The aim of the certificates is to decrease the environmental impact of cultivation and further the natural diversity of the area, as well as improve the workers’ conditions and further the dialogue between the producers and the local communities.

Our restaurants are committed to increasing the share of Finnish meat in their selections.

Our ABC restaurants only serve Finnish pork, beef and chicken. For our other chains of restaurants, the goal is for the fresh chicken and pork to be 100% of Finnish origin by the end of 2020. For frozen and processed foods, the goal is 90% of Finnish origin.

We are also committed to compliance with stricter restrictions on antibiotics in meat production than the regulations require. The excessive use of antibiotics leads to ever stronger antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. This is a global problem.

We do not approve routine-like antibiotic medication or antibiotic feed for healthy animals. Antibiotics must only be used when prescribed by a veterinarian, and their use must be limited to treating sick animals.

In the future, we will require all suppliers that produce our private label products using foreign meat to comply with S Group’s best practices and requirements for using antibiotics.