BY ANTONY CURRIE

Tyson Foods investors want to make the meat company a standard bearer for smart water management – just not the investors who count. At least 63 percent of independent shareholder votes cast at the $27 billion meat producer’s general meeting on Wednesday voted in favor of a resolution to manage pollutants better. Supervoting stock, however, has turned the promise of water reform into a washout.

The proposal at stake was hardly over the top. The American Baptist Home Mission Societies, and a handful of others, wanted a policy to deal with the animal effluent and chemicals produced by both Tyson’s 79 processing plants and the 11,000 or more farmers in its supply chain. That would help stop the company from exceeding wastewater limits, and incurring fines. The Tyson family, which has 70 percent of the company’s votes with an economic stake of only around one-fifth, had other ideas.

Tyson isn’t exactly ignoring water issues – it is conducting a geographic water-risk assessment of its U.S. operations and it requires suppliers to meet regulatory standards, among other steps it has taken. Trouble is, there’s a lot it has not done. According to Ceres, a not-for-profit investor environmental lobby group, it has not assessed future water conditions; it lacks watershed-protection plans; it doesn’t collect data from suppliers; and it has failed to ensure adequate board or executive oversight of water use or linked executive pay to water stewardship.

All in, Ceres awarded Tyson Foods just 11 out of 100 in its recent “Feeding Ourselves Thirsty” assessment of 42 of some of the world’s largest food, beverage, meat and agricultural-products companies, ranking it eighth from bottom. That’s atrocious for a business that relies so heavily on water – not least since many of its plants are in water-scarce regions like California and Texas.

While dual-class shares are common among entrepreneur-led young tech companies like Twitter and Facebook, it’s not clear why an 83-year-old food group still feels the need to limit shareholder rights. This example of being outvoted by the minority might make independent shareholders appreciate that more keenly. But even so, Tyson’s dismissal of the shareholder proposal is a wasted opportunity to show that even governance-challenged companies can set a decent environmental standard.

First published Feb. 8, 2018

IMAGE: REUTERS/Ross Courtney