ShareAction Pushes for Healthier Foods and Cleaner Air at 2025 AGMs

Reducing the negative impact of food companies by selling healthier foods and combating air pollution caused by industrial emissions. These are the two main themes that ShareAction, a non-profit organization based in the UK, has focused on this year during the 2025 season of AGMs, the annual general meetings.

The AGM season is very important for ShareAction, it says in a note: “It gives us, investors and engaged citizens, the opportunity to directly challenge the boards of directors of companies when their efforts to reduce harm to society are too slow. AGMs are organized by companies to bring together their shareholders, so we buy shares in the companies we want to influence, so we have legal access to these meetings.”

To promote healthier foods, as part of the Healthy Markets Initiative (HMI), ShareAction representatives and supporters attended corporate meetings of some of the largest and most influential food and beverage companies, including manufacturers, retailers, and restaurants.

These meetings were a real opportunity to hold corporate leaders accountable for the impact their businesses have on public health , making specific demands on behalf of ShareAction’s Long-Term Investors in People’s Health (LIPH) program. Key demands included greater transparency about the healthiness of products sold and a commitment to improving the supply of healthy foods.

ShareAction Leads Investor Efforts to Hold Corporations Accountable for Public Health and Environmental Impact

The meetings that ShareAction has attended (or intends to attend in the coming months) include major names in the sector: manufacturers include Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Unilever, PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz, Mondelēz International and General Mills , in the large-scale retail sector Tesco , while in the restaurant sector there are companies such as Domino’s Pizza (both US and UK), Papa John’s, Yum! Brands, McDonald’s, Greggs, Restaurant Brands International, Chipotle Mexican Grill and JD Wetherspoon.

However, the nonprofit has encountered difficulties in the United States , where many meetings are now held exclusively virtually, as in the case of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and McDonald’s. This approach has limited dialogue with boards of directors, due to very short meetings (such as that of Domino’s Pizza Inc., which lasted only 16 minutes), the pre-screening of shareholder questions and stringent limits on the number of words allowed for each intervention.

In contrast , in the UK and Europe , in-person participation has allowed ShareAction and its partners to ask questions directly to the top. Organizations such as CCLA, EQ Investors, Ethos Foundation, Greenbank and St. Francis of Philadelphia have demonstrated responsible leadership , the nonprofit notes, by pressuring companies with a huge public health impact to gain greater transparency. This commitment has already paid off, with some companies willing to meet with LIPH investors to discuss health and nutrition strategies.

According to ShareAction, a particularly significant aspect of this year was the collaboration with Bite Back, a youth activist organization fighting for a healthier food system. Thanks to this partnership, several young people were able to attend the AGMs of Domino’s Pizza Group, McDonald’s and Greggs, taking their concerns directly to the top management with strong and well-researched speeches.

“The results obtained during this season are encouraging,” the nonprofit states. “Some companies, even in the United States, have begun to respond to investor pressure. Nestlé, for example – the world’s largest food and beverage manufacturer – has publicly acknowledged ShareAction’s role in pushing it to start disclosing data on the healthiness of its sales, aligning itself with industry best practices and adopting a methodology supported by public health experts. Even General Mills, after five years of persistent questions at its AGMs, has finally started to disclose some data on the nutritional quality of its products, using internationally recognized metrics, although details on the method used remain scarce.”

But ShareAction’s work doesn’t end with the AGMs

Over the coming months, the LIPH program will continue to meet with foodservice companies to engage in constructive dialogue on transparency, health, and risk management. In parallel, discussions with manufacturers will continue to ensure that commitments are translated into greater healthy food supply.

Alongside the fight for healthier food, ShareAction is spearheading another emerging initiative within the LIPH program: the Clean Air Initiative. This project aims to tackle the problem of air pollution generated by corporate operations. The goal is to push companies in the highest-emitting sectors – such as logistics, transportation and construction – to be more transparent about the impacts, risks and opportunities related to air pollution, and to accelerate actions to reduce harmful emissions both in their direct operations and throughout their supply chains.

As many companies fail to act voluntarily in this area, ShareAction also calls on legislators and regulators to introduce binding rules and mandatory reporting systems on air pollution.

During this AGM season, ShareAction and its partners attended the meetings of large, global, high-emitting companies, such as Amazon, DHL, and UPS , to raise specific questions about their strategies to address air pollution. The responses were mixed: “some vague, some more promising and open to future discussion,” ShareAction says.

Going forward, the Clean Air Initiative will continue to engage with companies in high-emitting sectors to strengthen corporate responsibility on this critical public health issue. Constructive dialogues will be initiated to discuss emission reduction strategies and improve transparency on environmental impacts.

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(Featured image by Chris LeBoutillier via Unsplash)

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