Lobbying for Good

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A growing number of food companies and investors want Government to take a more proactive role in helping them deliver on their health and sustainability strategies. It's important to give those businesses and investors a platform and help to amplify their asks of policymakers.

As part of our Lobbying for Good initiative, we aim to highlight progressive voices within the food industry who - at the time of their engagement - we've identified as being leaders on specific areas within health and sustainability.

We hope their commitment to creating a fairer and more sustainable food system will continue into the future and that these blogs will inspire other business leaders to add their voices to the call for the new Government to regulate for positive change. 

Progressive voices calling for change

Oonagh Turnbull, Head of Health and Sustainable Diet Campaigns, Tesco

"We are feeling restless for change. We want the new government to make reporting mandatory, enforce evidence based policy and ultimately create a level playing field across the food industry.

"We want to work in collaboration with the new government and the rest of the food industry to shift the dial for healthy and sustainable diets. Now is the time for us to come together and make these changes."

Richard Hall, Vice President and General Secretary, Danone UK & Ireland

“We consume too many HFSS foods and have done for a long time. We need fewer HFSS products and to create a market where there is a commercial incentive to move in that direction.

“We want government to set targets that businesses can work towards, over a realistic period of time, without changing direction and using aligned, transparent reporting standards."

Nilani Sritharan, Head of Healthy and Sustainable Diets, Sainsbury’s

"We want to work alongside the new Labour Government to co-create effective policy that helps customers change what they eat. We believe that the whole food sector should play its part and the Government has a role to play in levelling the playing field for the food sector.

"The system must also reward businesses that lead change and not put them at a commercial disadvantage."

Andrew Selley, Chief Executive Officer, Bidfood

“Fundamentally, we want reassurance that the government takes our food system seriously, because we haven’t felt that recently.

"We need plans, timescales, commitments and budgets rather than just general statements."

James Perry, Co-chair and Co-Founder, Cook

"We have an unsustainable food system, with current regulations and incentives that prioritise cheap, plentiful calories.

"We need to redesign the rules - change the incentives - so that businesses provide food in a way which protects the systems in which they operate.

"We need a long-term strategic plan from Government; let’s dust off the National Food Strategy and build from there."

Alexander Burr, ESG Policy Lead, Legal and General Investment Management

"The food system is intertwined with key systemic risks from climate and nature change to the ongoing health crisis. Unfortunately, it is currently both exacerbating, and being impacted by, these global challenges.

"Transforming the system can support the delivery of key global treaties, such as the Paris Agreement and Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

"A key challenge to its reform is how you incorporate and effectively monitor the long supply chains found within the system. We encourage governments to strengthen coordination at both a national and international policy level, for example, ensuring food system considerations are integrated into key global agreements."

Rachel Crossley, Head of Stewardship, Europe, BNP Paribas Asset Management

"Investors like BNPPAM aim to deliver long-term returns for our clients, yet our ability to do that is threatened by systemic risks like climate change, nature loss, and diet-related ill health.

"That’s why we are asking for so-called ‘double materiality’ corporate reporting, so that we can understand both how companies are contributing to and affected by these systemic risks. We need companies to report high-quality, consistent information and data.

"As voluntary corporate disclosure has failed to meet our needs, we hope governments everywhere will mandate and standardise this kind of reporting, as the EU has done through the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)."

Sophie Lawrence, Stewardship and Engagement Lead, Greenbank

"As investors, we need to analyse the risks and opportunities facing companies, and to do this we need access to good quality and comparable data.

"We are therefore supportive of the UK Government’s Food Data Transparency Partnership (FDTP), which aims to develop better quality food data.

"We would like to see reporting on the FDTP metrics made mandatory, as history has shown us that voluntary standards have been inadequate at driving the necessary scale of change."

Matt Lomas, Engagement Director - Investment, Guy's & St Thomas' Foundation

"It is clear that investors and companies can’t do this on their own. We need Government to create policies and incentives that will help investors and businesses.

"Policies on food and drinks high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS) that were announced and then rowed back on have undermined progress.

There is a plan ready in the shape of the National Food Strategy. Let’s support and implement it."