Only two companies in the food industry incorporated animal welfare as a material topic in their sustainability reports last year, the Environmental and Animal Society of Taiwan said yesterday, urging the Financial Supervisory Commission to introduce mandatory regulations.
Formulated by Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp and Taipei Exchange, rules governing the compilation of sustainability reports by domestic listed or over-the-counter (OTC) companies require companies to compile their sustainability reports based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework, which has established “sector standards” to specify material topics by industries.
However, an investigation by the society showed that about 90 percent of the 58 domestic listed or OTC companies in the food industry did not properly disclose animal welfare-related information in their sustainability reports last year.
Photo: CNA
Only two companies — Taiwan Sugar Corp and Fwusow Industry Co — incorporated animal welfare as a topic in their sustainability reports in accordance with GRI standards, while 14 companies mentioned animal welfare-related practices such as purchasing cage-free eggs or using milk with animal welfare certification, society deputy executive director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said.
None of the 58 inspected companies has set up concrete policies or departments dedicated to animal welfare, she said.
Given that the rules also encourage companies to prepare sustainability reports based on the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) framework, the society also examined sustainability reports by 24 of the 58 companies that are categorized in the food and beverage industry, the meat, poultry and dairy industry, or the food retailers and distributors industry.
Of the 24 companies, only four companies fully disclosed animal welfare-related practices in line with SASB industry-specific standards, including President Chain Store Co, La Kaffa International Co, Kingza International Co and Taiwan FamilyMart Co, while the other companies’ disclosed information was significantly flawed or incomplete, Chen said.
The rules failed to include animal welfare in mandatory sustainability disclosures for companies with 50 percent or more of their revenue coming from foods or beverages made from animal-derived ingredients, she said.
Many global organizations, as well as the WHO, consider animal welfare one of the most important sustainability indicators for the food industry and a key aspect to its global competitiveness, Chen said.
The Ministry of Agriculture established guidelines for the welfare of economic animals a decade ago to encourage animal-friendly farming practices, she said.
While the livestock industry increasingly engaged in animal-friendly farming in line with the ministry’s policy, support and investment from the food industry is required to fulfill a major industrial shift to animal welfare, Chen said, urging the commission to ask the exchanges to stipulate animal welfare as a mandatory sustainability disclosure for the food and catering industries in the rules.
In response, the commission said it has established a roadmap for the listed or OTC companies to compile annual reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards from this year, which require sustainability disclosures in line with SASB industry-specific standards.
The commission would explore whether animal welfare should be specified in the rules to mandate relevant sustainability disclosures for the food industry, it said.
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