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Mondelez scales up due diligence & sector collaboration
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Monday, 09 June, 2025, 14 : 00 PM [IST]
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Chicago, USA
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Mondelez International Inc., released its 2024 Human Rights Due Diligence and Modern Slavery Report, outlining the company’s progress in helping to prevent, identify, and address potential human rights and modern slavery risks across its operations and value chain.
Chris McGrath, chief impact & sustainability officer, Mondelez International, said, “Doing what’s right is ingrained in our Snacking Made Right mission. We strive to embed human rights due diligence into how we do business every day. The scale of challenges needs increased focus and meaningful partnerships – and we continue to evolve and make progress on both fronts. We have strong execution plans that we believe will continue to support our growth around the world, underpinned by our focus on promoting a culture where everyone is treated with care and integrity.”
The company continues to strengthen its human rights due diligence (HRDD) across both its own operations and supplier network: 96% of owned manufacturing sites and 98% of prioritised suppliers have completed third-party SMETA audits in the past 3 years. HRDD coverage has been expanded to increase coverage of suppliers’ manufacturing and logistic sites handling the company’s finished products. Since launching its dedicated Human Rights Policy in 2021, the company has trained more than 50,000 colleagues on human rights issues, including 7,000 in manufacturing and logistics, and 3,000 in key stewardship roles.
As part of its focus on prioritised ingredients, it continued scaling its signature cocoa sustainability program Cocoa Life in 2024: Partnering with around 208,000 farmers and backed by a $1 billion investment from 2012 through 2030. As of year-end 2024, approximately 89% of Cocoa Life communities in West Africa – representing approximately 2,480 communities – are covered by Child Labor Monitoring & Remediation System (CLMRS). The company aims to cover all West African Cocoa Life communities with a CLMRS by the end of 2025 and has conducted more than 240,000 interviews to help prevent child labour.
Cocoa Life’s integrated approach focused on developing ways to help make cocoa farming more profitable, help protect and restore forests and help lift local cocoa communities. This includes efforts focused on women’s empowerment, income diversification, and entrepreneurship through Village Savings and Loan Associations and partnerships with CARE International.
It believes addressing systemic human rights issues in ingredient supply chains needs collaboration between governments, industry, and civil society. To help address child labor in the West African Cocoa supply chain, in 2024, the company deepened its support for sector-wide systemic solutions, through its continued support and investment of ~$3million from 2022 to 2026 in the Child Learning and Education Facility (CLEF), which aims to reach over 4 million children by transforming rural education in Cote d’Ivoire.
Building on the success of the CLEF initiative, it is supporting the development of a new public-private partnership, the System Change Architecture for Learning Excellence (SCALE) initiative to help improve the quality of education in Ghana with an investment of $1million over the next four years. SCALE is innovating how national-level financing can be unlocked. To date, three philanthropic partners and 10 cocoa and chocolate companies have joined forces to support SCALE — a collaborative co-funding mechanism that will inject further funds into the Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), a five-year governmental initiative seeking to improve the quality of education in low-performing basic education (ages 4-15) schools and strengthen the education sector across Ghana. It focuses on strengthening teaching capacity, accountability and leadership systems, access to high-quality school resources, and better operational management. It is the first time that private and philanthropic organizations have raised enough finance to trigger the Global Partnership for Education’s (GPE) Multiplier Grant in Ghana. By pooling US$40 million, SCALE partners were able to unlock an additional US$40 million from GPE to support GALOP.
Beyond cocoa, the company’s multiple collaborations with industry coalitions help support the company’s progress and human rights efforts. These include: Co-chairing the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) Human Rights Coalition, to help shape industry leading practices. This year, it supported the development of the Best Practice Note on Human Rights Defenders which aims to inspire businesses in helping to better protect human rights defenders. Supporting World Cocoa Foundation’s (WCF) vision to catalyze a thriving and equitable cocoa sector. Serving as a member of the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) Board of Directors to support sector-wide progress in addressing child labor in West African cocoa. Joining the Coalition for Responsible Sugarcane India (CRSI) to help strengthen human rights practices in India’s sugarcane sector. Co-chairing the CAOBISCO’s partnership with the International Labor Organization to help combat child labor in seasonal harvesting of hazelnuts in Turkey. Partnering with WageMap, a new initiative to drive alignment across living wage methodologies and frameworks.
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