Next week at Wendy’s annual meeting, shareholders will vote on a resolution demanding transparency into Wendy’s social responsibility efforts — and a true accounting of the the impact of those efforts on workers’ lives in the company’s supply chain.
Today, to help shareholders cast an informed vote, we take measure of Wendy’s claims of social responsibility leadership against a decade-long backdrop of dodging the gold standard for social responsibility in the food industry, the Fair Food Program.
In the run-up to next week’s annual shareholder meeting, Wendy’s released its official “2020 Corporate Responsibility Achievements & Goals” report late last month, cataloging a wide range of corporate social responsibility efforts over the past year, from the company’s animal care standards and climate change policy to its COVID-19 response. As part of the media strategy around the report’s launch, Wendy’s Chief Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Officer, Liliana Esposito, was interviewed by the hamburger giant’s own public relations blog, The Square Deal, and asked to explain the meaning of the report’s title, “Good Done Right”:
|
|
What is Good Done Right and what does it mean in the context of Wendy’s 2020 corporate responsibility report?
Good Done Right reflects our values, goals and approach across critical areas of our business: Food, People and Footprint.
What’s most energizing about the corporate responsibility space today is the recognition that making a positive impact in this area is vital for a business to succeed. Topics like environmental sustainability; responsible sourcing; and diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) are now as intrinsically connected to performance as traditional financial and operational metrics. This prioritization is true across the board with our key stakeholders. For example, we see many of our investors today identifying corporate responsibility and social impact as essential, raising the profile of our efforts and the broader focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics. For us, Good Done Right is how we organize and express the important work we are doing.
|
|
Tucked beneath a thick layer of corporate communications verbiage, this is, in fact, quite a revealing statement. At its core, the company’s message is remarkably honest: We have come to realize that in today’s world, people — including really important people, like investors — actually expect corporations to act responsibly and be able to show a meaningful impact. And if it’s important to our investors, it’s important to us.
Indeed, Wendy’s 2020 CSR report, and Ms. Esposito’s comments, would seem to indicate that maybe, just maybe, Wendy’s has begun to accept the idea that the company does, in fact, have a role to play in protecting workers’ fundamental human rights in its supply chain. But not so fast, because the very same company said this just a few months ago:
We believe that the Company’s day-to-day operations of running a quick-service hamburger concept are far removed from any underlying policy consideration of the protection of human rights and worker safety of the country’s meat and produce Suppliers.
In other words, human rights in our supplier’s operations are none of our business. Wendy’s included that chilling sentiment in a submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to block a shareholder resolution calling for transparency and an accounting of the real world impact of Wendy’s social responsibility efforts (the exact thing Ms. Esposito says is “most energizing about the corporate responsibility space today”) from being included on the ballot at this year’s annual meeting.
The two statements are nearly perfect opposites, yet, clearly, Wendy’s can’t have it both ways. So which is the real Wendy’s? Is it the company that, though it may have arrived late to the station, is now all aboard the social responsibility train, as Wendy’s 2020 CSR report — and its surprising 180 of recommending to shareholders that they vote in favor of the proposal — would have its shareholders believe? Or is the real Wendy’s the company that shuns transparency and rejects the very notion that, as a fast-food chain, it bears any responsibility whatsoever for conditions in its suppliers’ operations?
If Wendy’s is suddenly serious about social responsibility, then surely its next move will be to join the gold standard, award-winning the FFP. Only time will tell, but for now, Wendy’s shareholders looking to cast an informed vote on the resolution next week need to know Wendy’s real social responsibility history to understand why this vote is so important.
|
|
Coalition of Immokalee Workers
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
