ESG in practice: Assessing Food and Beverage companies’ externalities

The food and beverage industry is at the crossroads of the most acute environmental challenges we face. Indeed, feeding 7.5 billion humans is intimately related to our relationship with biodiversity and ecosystems. It is one of the root causes for climate change, providing the main source for two of the top three greenhouse gases as well as emitting a relevant proportion of the third gas.

At the same time, food and beverage companies are highly exposed to shifting consumer expectations. In particular, consumers becoming increasingly aware of the environmental, social and health-related impacts of the food they eat. These changes can lead to, or result from, new regulatory initiatives targeting product contents, packaging, and production processes.

For all these reasons, the food and beverage sectors provide the ideal ground to study how ESG investing is changing our perception of an important group of companies. We will examine how they are responding to and anticipating new regulatory and consumer pressure, and ultimately how they will become more sustainable whilst feeding, potentially, 10 billion humans by 2050.