Danone is a French multinational food company which specialises in dairy products, plant-based foods and beverages, water, early-life nutrition etc., with brands under its name e.g. Activia, Evian, Alpro, and Actimel. It is recognised as an industry leader in these areas, as well as a pioneer in bringing positive social impacts. Danone’ sales reached €27.7 billion in 2022, covering a wide range of regions, especially developed countries.
Danone’s products themselves bring positive impacts in the food market. An ATNI (Access to Nutrition Initiative) score of 90% represents products seen as healthy options for consumers’ daily shopping. By offering a diverse range of products from infants to adults, Danone holds a valuable role in bringing in better health for its customers, hence driving long-term social benefits. It also channels support to vulnerable communities by offering nutrition and water products – 600,000 people accessed nutritious food via Danone Communities and 10.9 million people were provided with safe drinking water.
In light of the increasing attention to environmental issues, Danone sets out quantifiable KPIs for its impact in GHG emissions, regenerative agriculture, waterbodies, and waste. Its three key objectives are switching to regenerative agriculture, reducing water footprint, and waste reduction along the supply chain (e.g. packaging). Regenerative agriculture is of particular interest for its innovative approaches to reduce GHG emissions, increase renewable energy usage, and apply more efficient usage of organic fertilizers. Its efforts on sustainable agriculture also introduces benefits for the Social aspect of ESG. Its H’lib Bladi project not only aims to increase the resilience against climate change for milk production in Morocco, but also improves the livelihood of local farmers.
74.2% of Danone’s total sales are certified as B Corp. which means that the majority of its output is meeting the highest social and environmental standards, and the business is beyond generation of profits but also creating social good. Danone’s vision is to get fully certified by 2025, which is a near-term goal and tends to drive more of its recent improvements in production and sales.
Danone not only pursues impact with a focus on itself, but also supports promising companies in the industry that share the same goals. Its Danone Manifesto Ventures work with many entrepreneurs in the food sector to promote sustainable development, ranging from allergy monitoring, tackling food waste to food distribution and more. Nonetheless, its major investments were made in France or the United States, and thus it is worth to see how Danone could deliver more investments in less developed markets to motivate local food revolutions.
Although Danone is appraised for its sustainability efforts – impact investment pioneer Sir Ronald Cohen gave credit to its efforts – as a commercial entity, profitability stays as an important goal, and thus there remains the issue or doubt of it doing “imaging” only. For instance, an FT reporter suspected that Danone’s marketing of bottled water products did not seem to align with its sustainable goals if the target market actually had good access to safe tap water.
In conclusion, Danone has long positioned itself as a key player in sustainable development within and beyond the food industry. Its ambitions are demonstrated by its vision to be certified fully as a B Corp and its pioneering step as the first French listed corporation to adopt the “Société à Mission” status. Danone goes beyond words by implementing substantial measures to reduce its negative impact on society and proactively adjusting to more innovative approaches in sourcing, production, and sales. Nonetheless, the fact that it remains a commercial entity entails the risks that it makes some compromises, particularly how critically and rationally it monitors and assesses its actions to drive positive impact.
Author: Zoey Chen
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