Diving overview:
- A coalition of shareholders is demanding greater transparency from major food and beverage companies. to How our products affect consumers’ health. The group said this would be a “first step” towards holding companies accountable for their “significant impacts on public health.”
- In a letter released Thursday, investors asked top executives of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Mondelez International and Kelanova to adopt an internationally recognized nutritional rating or scoring system that discloses the healthfulness of their products. I did it. The letter also urged companies to increase transparency by disclosing “health indicators” for their products annually.
- The letter takes the lead by Responsible Investment Nonprofit ShareAction We are backed by over 30 investors and asset managers who collectively manage over $3 trillion in assets. These include Mercy Investment Services, Trinity Health, Greenbank, Nest and the Socially Responsible Investment Coalition.
Dive Insights:
The letter’s signatories called poor health a “systemic risk” that could negatively impact productivity across the global economy and therefore long-term financial returns across investments.
Investors pointed to research showing that an obesity epidemic is expected to: It will cost the global economy more than $4 trillion by 2035. If prevention and treatment methods do not improve. According to the study, this would have a negative impact comparable to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“Overreliance on selling unhealthy products worsens consumers’ eating habits, negatively impacts their health, and leads to a further deterioration in society as a whole,” the November 21 letter noted. “It also exposes businesses and investors to avoidable risks.”
Signatories supporting the letter said, by contrast, prioritizing healthy products supports “the shared goal of creating long-term financial and social value for businesses, investors and consumers.”
The letter called on six large food and beverage companies to adopt the globally recognized product. Nutrient profiling modelcategorizes foods and drinks based on their nutritional content, ultimately helping you identify unhealthy products and prevent disease. Recommended NPMs include the Health Star Rating system, Nutri-Score and UK NPM.
Companies were also asked to disclose the revenue-weighted average NPM score of their entire global portfolio each year. Investors requested that the scores be made public, sorted by product category, total sales revenue generated from NPM-evaluated eligible products, and the percentage of sales of “healthy” and “less healthy” products designated according to the NPM being used.
The majority of the letter’s signatories are part of: ShareAction’s long-term investor in the People’s Health InitiativeWe advocate consideration and integration of health as a responsible investment theme.
