By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Commonwealth News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

The food we eat is responsible for as much as a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that comes from beef — including millions of burgers served up by fast food chains across the world. To date, fast food companies have made little progress in curbing their climate pollution, but pressure to hold these corporations accountable is beginning to come from what may seem like an unlikely group: their own shareholders. This year, fast food chains Jack in the Box and Wingstop agreed to publish their first set of measurable climate targets, led by a group called The Accountability Board.

The two-year-old nonprofit owns shares in roughly 100 publicly traded companies. Its purpose: “to hold companies accountable on issues relating to the environment, social matters and corporate governance,” says Matt Prescott. Prescott is a co-founder and one of the leaders of the organization.

How Shareholders Pressure Jack in the Box and Other Fast Food Chains

Shareholders, at least those that own a certain percentage of a company, are able to file proposals asking for action by the company that the shareholder wants to see. A growing movement of nonprofit shareholders have also used this strategy to increase corporate accountability. Kevin Chuah, PhD, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who researches stakeholder activism, explains the tactic: “They’re using the financial system infrastructure to enable them to get access to companies that they might not get access to otherwise.”

The Accountability Board focuses on the food and agriculture sector in particular, says Prescott, including industry giants like Tyson Foods and Hormel Foods. While issues like corporate governance and diversity, equity, inclusion and justice are universal across industries, food and agriculture companies are unique in their outsized impact on the environment and animal welfare, Prescott says.

Most multinational corporations have made public climate commitments, but many have failed to back them up with actionable plans for accomplishing those goals. That was the case too with Jack in the Box, Prescott tells Sentient. “They’ve got disclosures about risks posed by climate change and other environmental issues, but the company didn’t actually have measurable goals for reducing its emissions,” he says. But thanks to the newly-passed proposal, now they will.

Jack in the Box now reports scope 1 and 2 emissions — emissions the company directly emits or that are generated from the electricity or other utilities the chain uses. In the food sector however, as much as 90 percent of greenhouse gasses come from scope 3 sources, with most of those coming from meat and dairy products. Scope 3 refers to emissions that come from a company’s supply chain, which in this case, includes the very beef burgers that are a massive driver of food-related emissions.

Yet an important part of The Accountability Board’s strategy is structuring their proposals strategically to make it more likely to actually pass. The group aims to keep them general, says Prescott, in this case asking for measurable targets, but not prescribing exactly what those targets should be.

Ahead of the vote, the nonprofit’s team spent time engaging with the largest shareholders to ensure they would find the proposal appealing. When it comes to “major shareholders, like BlackRock and Vanguard Group,” says Prescott, they lean against supporting proposals “that are overly prescriptive.”

A Brief History of Shareholder Activism

Shareholder activism traces its roots back to the 1980s, when individuals or groups would acquire shares in companies in order to push for some kind of change within the corporation. At that time, shareholder activists usually sold their shares once they accomplished their goals, earning them the nickname of “corporate raiders.”

Since then, shareholder activists have managed to reform their reputation, even with corporate executives. According to Chuah, whose research focuses specifically on environmental, social and governance issues, a number of executives can point to “situations where shareholders have brought interesting information to us that we hadn’t thought about before.”

The Accountability Board doesn’t usually sell its shares, instead choosing to maintain and also grow its portfolio by acquiring stock in new companies, says Prescott. Most of the shares the organization owns were bought with an initial $11 million grant from the non-profit foundation, Open Philanthropy. Tax records indicate the group’s investments netted them $17,280 in 2022, but because The Accountability Board was formed in the latter part of that year, the figure only reflects a few months of proceeds.

For Chuah, shareholder activists are one piece of the bigger picture of change. Agitator nonprofits and religious groups are often the “innovators,” he says, the ones “who get issues onto the table and effectively bring them to the attention of the mainstream.” Next, “the institutional investors get on board.” Real progress, he says, will require both: those working within and outside of institutions.


Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.

Three environmental nonprofits filed suit Wednesday against the California Air Resources Board to oppose the expansion of a program allowing oil and gas companies to offset their pollution by buying credits from huge farms producing natural gas from animal waste.

Last month, the state amended the low carbon fuel standard to expand credits favoring biogas, arguing it removes methane from the waste stream and creates renewable power.

Tyler Lobdell, staff attorney for the nonprofit co-plaintiff Food and Water Watch, said the program is actually a perverse incentive for factory farms to get bigger.

"The biggest operators, the biggest polluters, are the most rewarded," Lobdell pointed out. "That is the incentive structure here. Go out and be as big and as polluting as possible, and you will see the largest reward from our program."

The low carbon fuel standard is intended to reduce carbon pollution by incentivizing the transition to clean cars. The lawsuit argued the credit program prioritizes pollution-heavy practices over sustainable solutions.

Lobdell noted manure only produces methane when large quantities are liquefied at concentrated animal feeding operations. He suggested the state require factory farms to manage their manure in ways which do not rely on anaerobic environments emitting methane.

"The real solution to addressing pollution is to reduce the pollution, not to monetize it and lock it in for generations," Lobdell contended. "We should be requiring these facilities to more sustainably manage their waste. That would have climate benefits, that would also have benefits to local air quality and to local water quality."

The lawsuit asks the court to require the California Air Resources Board to disclose, analyze and mitigate the environmental impact caused by the change to the low-carbon fuel standard. The other two plaintiffs include the nonprofits Defensores del Valle Central para el Aire y Agua Limpio, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.


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Business leaders, clean transportation advocates and other experts say new technologies are helping to accelerate the transition to clean trucks and sustainable freight across Pennsylvania. Members of the Clean Trucks Pennsylvania Coalition are calling on federal and state leaders to back programs that support the deployment of clean-power trucks across the Commonwealth.

Jordan Stutt, senior director, northeast region with CALSTART, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing clean transportation solutions, said the goal is to get gas and diesel-powered trucks off the road.

"We are going to take one of the busiest freight corridors in the country, I-95, and turn it into one of the first zero-emission freight corridors in the U.S. That investment and the jobs that it will bring underscore that this transition to clean trucks is all about opportunity," he said.

The coalition is urging Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and state and local leaders to adopt the Advanced Clean Trucks Act. Advocates say the act would reduce emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050.

Brooke Petry, field organizer with Moms Clean Air Force of Pennsylvania, said zero-emission trucks are the key to cleaning up the air Pennsylvania families breathe. When residents of South Philadelphia step outside in the morning, the air often has a distinct toxic smell, and she added that toxic air pollution doesn't harm everyone equally.

"Here in Philadelphia, children of color are hospitalized for asthma complications at five times the rate of their white peers. Reducing harmful diesel pollution from trucks is a key component to address climate justice in our city and beyond," she explained.

Erin Johnson, Registered Nurse with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, said diesel exhaust is responsible for multiple types of respiratory illnesses and cancers in the region.

"The trucks, buses, trains and port operations that keep goods and services moving through our region also contribute to deadly air pollution. Diesel exhaust contains more than 40 known cancer-causing organic substances. The good news is that we have solutions to this diesel pollution problem," she said.


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Members of the environmental nonprofit GreenLatinos are involved in a push to get more Latinos across Texas involved in the fight against methane gas. Texas is one of the largest producers of the hazardous chemical.

Rogelio Meixueiro, Texas community advocate with GreenLatinos, said a large part of the campaign is educating the community.

"They tell me all the problems that they're experiencing, and the moment I connect with them the fact that there's a fracking site less than a mile away, they start seeing how, 'yeah ever since we moved to this area, we started having breathing problems.' The one that hurts me the most is really the birth defects. Learning that Latino women are some of the most impacted with birth defects is heartening," he explained.

He added that meetings will be held across the state over the next six months, culminating with a final day of action in Austin before the state Legislature.

The organization is forming what they call the Latino Methane Table, to make sure everyone has a seat at the table. Meixueiro said elected officials are passing laws that directly impact the immigrant population, and they hope to give them a voice before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

"We're seeing how Latinos are constantly affected the most in the agriculture fields, construction. It's so hot, often we don't associate 'oh, methane' - the thing that we are getting out of the Permian - is actually the one that is creating some of the conditions," he explained.

He added the state has a history of being unfair to minorities.

"For Dallas and Fort Worth, what we're noticing is that there's a long history that is tied with redlining. And we notice how often the communities with the most amount of permits approved for fracking - fracking near day-care centers, fracking near homes - it's usually areas where particularly Latino and Black communities live," he continued.