Shoprite Holdings Ltd

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Direct Lobbying Transparency

Overall Assessment	Comment	Score
Comprehensive	Shoprite Holdings provides a highly detailed and coherent picture of its climate-policy lobbying. It names a wide range of specific measures it has engaged on, including the South African Carbon Tax, the Extended Producer Responsibility regulations, Government Gazette No. 40762 on national GHG-emission reporting, the City of Cape Town’s draft Resilience Strategy, the draft national Strategy for Reducing Food Losses and Waste, and policy discussions on the reliability of electricity supply. The company is equally clear about how and with whom it lobbies: it describes “directly engag[ing] with the city by providing comments and input to the strategy,” meeting the “Government Department: National Treasury (Republic of South Africa)” during the carbon-tax consultation, working “through the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA) trade association,” and “participat[ing] in discussions with the new Minister of Electricity’s task team.” Finally, it spells out the concrete outcomes it seeks, such as ensuring the carbon tax is “ring-fenced and used for national climate change mitigation or adaptation initiatives,” “support[ing] the creation of a single EPR scheme for South Africa,” “support[ing] the increase of renewable electricity available via the national grid,” and “support[ing] the reporting of carbon emissions so that a national GHG emissions inventory can be determined.” This level of specificity across policies, mechanisms, targets and desired results demonstrates comprehensive transparency in the company’s climate-related lobbying disclosures.	4

Lobbying Governance

Overall Assessment	Comment	Score
Strong	Shoprite’s Social and Ethics Committee, composed of non-executive directors, the CFO and senior managers, “oversees and guides public policy engagement” and receives an “Environmental Sustainability Update is presented to this Committee (3 times per year), for its deliberation and feedback,” including climate-related performance. This committee approved “New position statements for Climate Change, Water Security and Biodiversity and Responsible Sourcing” and relies on a Chief Sustainability Officer and Group Sustainability Manager—where “The Group Sustainability Manager is the central point of contact within the company for any climate-related issues and queries”—to ensure that “direct and indirect company activities that influence policy will be consistent with the company’s overall climate change strategy and sustainability framework.” While this structure provides a named owner and recurring review of climate-aligned lobbying activities, we found no evidence of a dedicated, publicly available climate-lobbying audit or of explicit procedures for addressing conflicting trade-association positions.	3