A corporate match made in heaven – for the parties involved, or hell – for humanity and the planet. The very first Laundromat honed in on Pringles as a prime example of corporate greenwashing. This week the crisp-adjacent snack’s parent company Kellanova (the junk food supplier formerly known as Kellogg’s) announced that it had agreed to be bought by human/pet snack peddlers Mars. The combination of the maker of Cheez-Its, Pop Tarts, and Pringles together with the company that offers the world the sugar-rush of the Mars, Snickers, and Bounty bars stands to enter the Top 5 of the world’s largest food manufacturers.
The current global food industry leaders are Coca Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé – the latter having been the subject of a shareholder revolt earlier this year over its unhealthy product offering. The merged Mars/Kellanova entity will slot neatly into this group of companies, which are all arguably an ESG nightmare. Not only are their product lines dominated by ultra-processed products that are fuelling a global health crisis, but they are also among the world’s worst plastic polluters. Mars and Kellanova have expressed confidence that the merger will be approved despite its size, based on their belief that the firms have complementary products. Mars’ Chinese distribution network and Kellanova’s African presence will see yet more millions of practically unrecyclable Pringles tubes and single-use plastic Mars bar sachets littering the countryside of two large continents. Along with the mountains of unmanageable waste, China and African countries will see the continued spread of the ultra-processed foods (UPFs) that are displacing traditional, healthier diets across the globe.
Time for a portfolio detox?
Interestingly, a quick look at the latest holdings of several very large, otherwise sustainably minded Nordic investors reveals the presence of all the companies mentioned so far, except for Mars inc. It seems that the environmental and social damage caused by these large food companies is slipping through the ESG net. Activist NGO ShareAction’s Healthy Markets Initiative aims to bring the issue of access to healthy food up the sustainable investment agenda. Perhaps the proposed merger with Mars will be the catalyst for Nordic investors in Kellanova to also reconsider their wider holdings in the UPF sector.
Beyond the action in the junk food industry, it has been a quiet few summer weeks in terms of new scandalous behaviour for the Laundromat to get its teeth into. Climate impact scholar Johan Rockström delivered a state-of-the-planet TED talk in Seattle that one can only hope will command the attention of global policymakers in the run-up to COP29. Rockström, the co-developer of the planetary boundaries framework warned us that climate change is advancing at a far quicker pace than previously estimated. Alarmingly, the pace of warming is accelerating, and the global economy is already being hammered by the devastating effects of the climate and biodiversity crises. According to Rockström, global GDP could take an 18% hit by 2050 if we continue along the current path. With crucial climate tipping points under imminent threat, suffice to say that Rockström’s TED talk is not for the faint-hearted.
Nevertheless, Rockström offers a glimmer of hope despite his understandably gloomy demeanour, in the form of a concerted global effort that depends on speed and scale: “We know that solving the planet crisis is not utopia. It’s not fantasy. We have the solutions for a secure, stable future for humanity. What are those transformations? Well, we know them. It’s a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. It is a transition towards circular business models. It is transitioning towards healthy diets from sustainable food systems. And it’s not only halting loss of nature, it’s also scaling the regeneration and restoration of marine systems, soils, forests and wetlands.”
PetroCOPs and the Great Orange Threat
Rockström points out that the money and technology for much of this climate action already exists. However, as regularly lamented within this column, the COP climate conference process has so far failed to deliver. It took three decades to even deign to mention the words ‘fossil fuels’. The COP29 organisers in Baku, Azerbaijan (yet another petrostate) announced last week that they will hold a Climate Action Week from 30 September to 4 October 2024 as a precursor to the main event. Some NGOs are complaining of a lack of access and a rather repressive atmosphere. There appears to be diminished overall enthusiasm and limited expectations for COP29, with some parties apparently looking to keep their powder dry for Brazil’s COP30. The chronically cynical Laundromat wonders whether COP delegates are really so shallow as to be motivated more by the quality of the destination hotels and beaches rather than a Rockström-style call to arms. COP29 will also begin just under a week after the US elections, the outcome of which will have a huge impact on global climate negotiations should the Climate-Denier-in-Chief come out on top.
