Yum agrees to provide “double materiality” disclosure in ’22

– The Shareholder Commons submitted shareholder proposals to 21 companies asking for “systems-first investing.”

In this blog, Cooley’s Cydney Posner covers how “The Shareholder Commons” – headed by Rick Alexander – is approaching ESG activism differently than others. TSC has submitted 21 shareholder proposals this year, each designed to advance “systems-first investing.” Systems-first investing is the idea that investors should work to prevent companies from engaging in business strategies that negatively impact people and the planet.

Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut—has agreed to implement the proposal for next year. Specifically, the company agreed to:

– Study and disclose the system-wide costs of antimicrobial resistance (AMR);
– Disclose its findings regarding how antibiotic use in animal husbandry threatens global health and well-being, the global economy, and diversified shareholder interests;
– Discuss an optimal, global scenario for the food industry to eliminate or internalize AMR costs;
– Describe how its policies, procedures, and political influence strategies affect the realization of an optimal global scenario.

Yum! thus becomes the first public company to agree to disclose its impact on the broad economy and diversified shareholders – the first US company to agree to “double materiality” disclosure.