Shares Progress and New Goals across its Social
and Environmental Priorities to Further its Impact
HERSHEY,
Pa., May 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hershey
Company (NYSE: HSY) today shared its 2021 ESG (environmental,
social and governance) Report, highlighting the company's goals and
progress across its priority ESG areas including cocoa
sustainability, environmental sustainability, responsible sourcing
and human rights, employee well-being, and diversity, equity and
inclusion (DEI).
Hershey's 2021 ESG Report shares progress
and new goals across its social and environmental priorities.
Hershey's holistic ESG strategy, known as its Shared Goodness
Promise, guides the company to make a positive impact at scale and
leverage its business to advance more sustainable growth with
socially conscious and responsible business practices. This year's
report marks Hershey's evolution from sustainability to ESG
reporting, a reflection of the company's continued progress
integrating ESG priorities into business strategy and
operations.
"Hershey has been an integral member of the communities in which
we live and operate since our founding," said Michele Buck, CEO, The Hershey Company. "The
culture that Milton Hershey created
propels us to build on that legacy as we focus our efforts on
integrating the important environmental, social and governance
priorities throughout our business. We've made meaningful
advancements on our global commitments, including our efforts to
improve cocoa sustainability and support cocoa-growing communities.
We've also made significant progress reducing our emissions in line
with our science-based targets and were named by Forbes as the
World's Top Female Friendly Company."
Advancing Progress on Cocoa Sustainability
Hershey's Cocoa For Good Strategy aims to improve farmer
livelihoods in cocoa-growing communities through a
$500 million investment by 2030 that
focuses on four key interconnected areas of impact: nourishing
children, empowering youth, prospering communities and preserving
ecosystems.
- Sourcing Cocoa: In 2021, Hershey achieved 68 percent
cocoa sourcing visibility by volume in Côte d'Ivoire and
Ghana. The company's goal is to
achieve 100 percent sourcing visibility by 2025 under which all
farmers are polygon mapped to improve traceability and monitor
deforestation and are covered by the Child Labor Monitoring and
Remediation System (CLMRS) to prevent, monitor and remediate child
labor.
- Addressing Child Labor: Hershey signed a five-year
agreement to address child labor in Côte d'Ivoire by investing in
2,500 new classrooms and improving foundational literacy and
numeracy skills for five million children at the primary school
level. This agreement brings together the Jacobs Foundation, the
Government of Côte d'Ivoire Ministry of Education and Literacy, and
14 other chocolate producers and cocoa suppliers.
- Offering Nutritious Options: The company distributed
ViVi, its vitamin-fortified, peanut-based, ready-to-use
therapeutic food that provides children with 30 percent of their
daily nutrition intake requirements, to 45,000 children in Côte
d'Ivoire and Ghana.
Reducing Environmental Impact to Combat Climate
Change
Hershey is making significant progress against its science-based
targets, which focus on what the planet needs most from the company
and its supply chain.
- Reducing Emissions: Hershey achieved a 48 percent
reduction of its Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions; significant progress toward its 2030 goal of a 50
percent absolute reduction, compared to a 2018 baseline. The
company also reported an 18 percent reduction in Scope 3 emissions,
on track to reach its goal of a 25 percent absolute reduction in
Scope 3 emissions by 2030, compared to a 2018 baseline.
To reduce its Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions, Hershey
continues to transition to renewable energy through
investments in three new solar farm projects across the U.S. and
purchasing Renewable Energy Credits and Zero-Emissions Credits, an
important step as solar farms are being constructed.
With more than 96 percent of Hershey's total GHG emissions
resulting from its extended value chain, the company seeks to
further its impact across sourcing, production, operations and
manufacturing. Hershey's key drivers of progress include reducing
land use change through 100 percent independently verified cocoa
and partnering with dairy and sugar suppliers on sustainable
farming practices.
Broadening Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Efforts
Through The Pathways Project, Hershey has increased efforts to
bring in a wider range of talent, strengthen its development
programs and support diverse and inclusive communities through its
supply chain.
- Driving Inclusive Hiring: In 2021, Hershey set a new
goal to achieve a college recruiting portfolio that is at least 50
percent diverse and added 23 Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) to
its roster of universities and schools to recruit from.
- Advancing Economic Equality: The company also
established a new goal to increase spending with diverse suppliers
to $400 million by 2030 to promote
economic equality and opportunity for diverse businesses. In 2021,
the company spent $92 million with
139 diverse suppliers.
Recognizing that transparency drives accountability, Hershey's
2021 ESG report contains expanded DEI and human capital
disclosures. The report includes data representative of The Equal
Employment Opportunity (EEO)-1 U.S. gender and U.S. people of color
(POC) workforce data by function, including all corporate and
hourly employees. The company has goals in place to increase POC
representation in its U.S. workforce, as well as increase gender
representation across all employees globally. Having achieved
1-to-1 aggregate gender and POC pay equity for salaried employees
in the U.S. in 2020 and 2021 respectively, the company now aims to
achieve pay equity for similar job categories across its global
salaried employees by 2025.
Integrating ESG into Business Operations
Hershey has built a comprehensive corporate governance model to
drive its ESG strategy forward across the business, overseen by its
Board of Directors. In 2021, Hershey updated its governance
structure to better integrate, manage and optimize ESG as a key
part of business operations. The company also established an ESG
Advisory Committee of executive team members and senior leaders to
discuss proposed investments, disclosures and policy changes and
review ESG strategic direction.
About The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company is
headquartered in Hershey, Pa., and is an industry-leading
snacks company known for bringing goodness to the world through its
iconic brands, remarkable people and enduring commitment to help
children succeed. Hershey has approximately 19,000 employees around
the world who work every day to deliver delicious, quality
products. The company has more than 100 brand names in
approximately 80 countries around the world that drive more
than $8.9 billion in annual revenues, including such
iconic brand names as Hershey's,
Reese's, Kit
Kat®, Jolly Rancher and Ice
Breakers, and fast-growing salty snacks including
SkinnyPop, Pirate's Booty and Dot's
Pretzels.
For more than 125 years, Hershey has been committed to operating
fairly, ethically and sustainably. Hershey founder, Milton
Hershey, created the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and since then
the company has focused on helping children succeed.
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SOURCE The Hershey Company