At Dove and beyond

Once the darlings of sustainability campaigners, Unilever has become the focus of protestors seeking to stop the company using single-use plastics, in particular for Dove soap.

Greenpeace campaigners sprinkled “Dove confetti” at the company’s AGM in London this week (pictured) with activists holding up banners declaring “Dove ditch plastic” and chanting “Ditch plastic or we’ll ditch Dove.”

Nina Schrank, head of plastics at Greenpeace, issued a statement, saying: “From palm oil to plastic pollution, Unilever can’t hide the real harm they’re causing.” The board can’t, as you might say, wash it away.

Board Agenda would like to remind readers it was a mere two years ago that gruff investment guru Terry Smith was slinging mud at Unilever, claiming the company’s leaders were preoccupied with “sustainability credentials” at the expense of “focusing on the fundamentals of business.”

Unilever might get it right one day.

ESG robot reboot

There’s good news for advocates of ESG worried that political attacks might scupper the whole idea: artificial intelligence will save it.

According to Nigel Green, chief executive of deVere, the investment bank, AI and natural language processing will supercharge ESG strategy, allowing us to more easily sift through the necessary data needed to give it credibility.

“ESG has become a lightning rod for controversy, particularly in the US where Republican lawmakers, among others, have framed it as ‘woke capitalism,’ at odds with traditional investment principles,” said Green.

“The resultant backlash, including blacklisting of major financial groups and legislative restrictions in certain [US] states, underscores the urgent need for a re-evaluation of ESG frameworks.

“But we believe there’s a transformative potential in emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, which will redefine and revitalize responsible investing.”

ESG was in need of a reboot. This might give it byte.

Tough medicine

More executive pay excitement in the news after the AGM of big pharma outfit Smith & Nephew. Shareholders didn’t entirely like the remuneration policy medicine and voted 43% in opposition, more than enough to go on the Public Register of shareholder revolts and prompt a formal response from the board.

Smith & Nephew became the second pharma firm to swallow a shareholder outcry in April after AstraZeneca suffered 64% opposition to the directors’ pay policy.

It was only last week that Board Agenda was reporting none of the 34 FTSE 350 firms with AGMs in Q1 had seen much opposition to pay, an apparent vindication for those in the City arguing CEO pay should rise.

Anyway, the fact that a lot of shareholders have now told two major players that their pay policies are a headache shows that not every CEO can put their feet up waiting for the cash to roll in.

Witch Hunt or open season?

Some agitation this week over the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) plan for naming and shaming companies that fall under investigation by watchdogs.

In an unusual move that left many City observers wide-eyed, chancellor Jeremy Hunt went public with the view that FCA officials should give the whole naming and shaming idea a rethink.

That’s not the end of the story. Mid week, Lord (Andrew) Tyrie—a former Bank of England economist and MP who once chaired the Treasury select committee before becoming chair of the Competition and Markets Authority, intervened to say it wasn’t such a bad idea.

Quoted in The Times, Tyrie said: “Business growth sustained at the expense of consumer detriment is growth we can do without. If a large number of consumers look as if they’re being ripped off, then disclosure is likely to be in the public interest.”