Big Food should be ESG’s next target

HOW many Diet Cokes are too many Diet Cokes? And if you sell too many, should you get an environmental, social, governance (ESG) rating downgrade, or have a health offset of some kind? A nutri-credit perhaps? It would be bought from, say, the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK or a gut-health education group.

That’s not as ridiculous as it sounds, particularly if you are a big company going after a top ESG rating. These days, you can mitigate all manner of ills caused to society by stumping up a part of your profits for feel-good points. Airlines can buy carbon credits; builders can use biodiversity credits to offset their damage in woodlands and wetlands. So why not nutri-credits too?

The harm done by ultra-processed food (UPF) – and by extension those who produce it – to the health of the world is increasingly obvious. The last few months have seen a spate of books on the matter – think Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food… and Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken. Most nutritionists and doctors are firmly on the same page.