McDonald’s shareholders reject obesity-impact proposal

  • May 28, 2012
  • Matt Paish

Global foodservice retailer, McDonald’s, has rejected a resolution requiring the corporation to publicly assess the impacts of its food on public health.

At the company’s annual shareholder meeting, shareholders voted on a resolution requiring the corporation to publicly assess its impacts on public health. The resolution received a 6.4 per cent vote.

The resolution would compel McDonald’s Board of Directors to assess how the growing body of evidence linking fast food and its marketing with diet-related conditions will impact McDonald’s finances and operations.

The proposal requested that McDonald’s board issue a report within six months of the 2012 annual meeting, “assessing the company’s policy responses to growing evidence of linkages between fast food and childhood obesity, diet-related diseases and other impacts on children’s health.”

The resolution was advanced by a coalition of institutional investors, including Corporate Accountability International, a corporate watchdog and consumer advocacy group.

McDonald’s has more than 33,000 restaurants serving nearly 68 million customers in 119 countries each day.

According to Corporate Accountability International, this was the first resolution introduced calling on a major corporation to address its impact on public health, or “health footprint,” as well as the liabilities for shareholders’ of such impacts.


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