Investors Back Unilever Use of Food Health Metrics | ESG Investor

This ESG Investor article reports that the health-focused shareholder resolution coordinated by ShareAction and co-filed at Unilever by a group of investors representing US$215 billion in assets under management (AUM) has been withdrawn.

Investors withdrew the resolution as a result of the company’s new commitment to “publish annual assessments for around 25,000 products against a range of nutrient profiling models (NPMs), which are used by national food standards authorities to classify and regulate their consumer food markets to improve public health and nutrition”.

Highlighting that only a third of global packaged food and drink products are estimated to be healthy, and that investor interest in health and nutrition is rising, the article also reports that Unilever will set targets for increasing the proportion of its sales derived from healthy products:

“Unilever will also set new targets for increasing the proportion of its healthy sales ahead of its 2023 AGM and will submit these to shareholder scrutiny.

According to the Access to Nutrition Initiative’s 2021 Global Index, less than a third of all packaged food and drink products can be classified as healthy based on a government-backed definition. Last November, the initiative published eight case studies highlighting the engagement efforts of institutional investor signatories to improve corporate performance on nutrition and health.”