Driving Change: - Business Commitments - to Food Systems Transformation

The quantitative analysis uses the WBA Food and Agriculture Benchmark data from 2021 and 2023.2 These datasets rank the world’s 350 most influential food and agriculture companies on an extensive range of sustainability indicators across the company’s full value chain – at the corporate level, in the workplace, in the supply chain, in the marketplace and in the community. [...] In addition, the analysis explored the leadership role played by the 28 Business Declaration signatories by comparing their scores with the average across the 350 agriculture and food companies assessed by WBA and by identifying those that demonstrated best practices (scoring a maximum score of 1) on the selected indicators. [...] Limitations to this quantitative assessment include the limited proportion of Business Declaration signatories included in the dataset and changes to the methodology between the 2021 and 2023 benchmarks, which affect some changes in company rankings and which mean that some indicators (such as A1. [...] Overall, while the companies that signed the 2021 Business Declaration are clearly outperforming those in the Food and Agriculture Benchmark as a whole and are thus continuing to play a leadership role in driving change within the sector, there is an urgent need for a step change in ambition to transform food systems for people, nature and climate. [...] • Among the signatory group, almost all companies (26/28) demonstrate leadership on the topic of transparency, scoring above the average of the 350 ranked agricultural companies on the sustainability strategy and governance and accountability indicators.