Following NLPC’s presentations of shareholder proposals at Walmart last week and Colgate-Palmolive in May, two online publications that focus on the packaging industry wrote up recaps of the companies’ annual meetings this week.
NLPC’s proposals called for the companies to implement serious scientific and economic analyses in their plastic packaging decisions, instead of establishing policies designed to appease emotion-driven pressure groups agitating to stop an alleged “plastics pollution crisis.” Neither of NLPC’s proposals passed votes by shareholders, nor did ones sponsored by pro-recycling activists.
Crain’s Plastics News reported:
“The bottom line is that, at least now on this issue of plastics packaging, there is some call for rational and objective scientific and economic analysis on the issue of recycling and its viability, whereas before there was none,” said Paul Chesser, director of the Corporate Integrity Project at Falls Church, Va.-based NLPC. “Companies have not seen a proposal like NLPC’s before this year.”
Rather than focus on the vote totals, Chesser pointed to Walmart and other major brands exiting the U.S. Plastics Pact, a voluntary group that set plastics reduction goals for companies.
“Regarding plastics, I find it more telling that top recycling advocate Walmart — as well as Mondelez, Mars and Nestle — have left the U.S. Plastics Pact,” he said. “They couldn’t reach their 2025 goals and recognized it wasn’t feasible.
“That’s why we called for serious science and economics to inform policies, not fairy tales,” he said. “We will take that kind of development any day over a win on a shareholder proposal.
In its June 5 presentation to Walmart, NLPC said the company’s plans to increase recycled content in packaging, like a clamshell bakery container, increases prices to consumers.
And Packaging Dive reported:
NLPC’s goal this year was to present a different point of view it believes has been absent, and generate discussion. “A lot of plastics just end up in the landfill or incinerator anyway,” said Paul Chesser, director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. “We’re just looking for more balanced, calibrated consideration of plastics policies.”
Chesser explained that companies have been responding to pressure to reduce plastic use and transform packaging without adequately examining economic viability. “In our few years here of doing ambitious shareholder activism, we’ve seen a lot of these proposals from the progressive side of things pushing this,” Chesser said.
The point wasn’t to get a victory, Chesser said. “It’s really to raise the issue. Show there’s a different perspective on the issue … and to shift the conversation.”
This is the first year NLPC addressed the issue of plastics, after seeing a dramatic increase in shareholder proposals from progressive investors that sought to pressure companies to increase recycled content in packaging. As with most environment-themed causes like climate change, the leftists’ proposed solutions raise costs and do nothing to improve the environment — hence NLPC’s call for “truth-in-recycling” requests.
NLPC’s proposal for Colgate can be viewed here and Walmart’s can be viewed here. We circulated lengthy reports in support of our proposals to investors representing millions of shares in the companies, which are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our report on Colgate can be read here and the Walmart report can be found here.
Our own recaps of our meeting presentations for the proposals can be found here (Colgate) and here (Walmart).
