Companies Under Fire Over Plastic Use

Plastic use and the risks associated with it are garnering more heat from stakeholder groups, including shareholders, the federal government, the United Nations and ESG accounting standard setters, which have targeted single-use plastics.

Boards should ensure that appropriate internal stakeholders are prepared for increased focus on the issue, which has generated popular shareholder proposals this proxy season, as well as new disclosure recommendations.

For example, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) put forth recommended changes to its chemical industry standard, which it laid out in a June 2022 project report. Among changes recommended by the SASB are the addition of a new disclosure topic, “Management of Single-use Plastics,” and five new metrics intended to capture risks associated with single-use plastics for the SASB chemicals industry standard.

…Meanwhile, environmental proxy proposals aimed at plastic use were submitted at several S&P 500 companies this year — Exxon Mobil, McDonald’s and Phillips 66. None of those three passed, according to public company intelligence provider MyLogIQ, but they generated high support levels, between 35% to 50%. Each was focused on the board’s producing a report pertaining to plastic use and potential reductions of some sort.