Bid by P&G founders’ descendants to oust CEO, board committee fails

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By Jessica DiNapoli

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Descendants of Procter & Gamble’s founders lost a bid on Tuesday to oust CEO Jon Moeller and members of the committee overseeing environmental sustainability for allegedly failing to manage deforestation risks in the consumer goods maker’s supply chain.

At the company’s virtual annual meeting, shareholders voted in Moeller and members of the governance and public responsibility committee for another one-year term, the company said, citing preliminary results.

The descendants asked shareholders last month to vote out the executives, saying that P&G, one of the world’s biggest buyers of wood pulp, has not managed risks related to forest degradation and deforestation in its supply chain.

P&G, whose brands include Tide detergent, last year dropped a pledge from its corporate policy to not buy pulp, an essential material for products like Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels, from degraded forests. The descendants told shareholders that P&G’s forest commodities policy is “woefully insufficient and unclear.”

In the last year, some of the descendants tried meeting with P&G’s management and board to strengthen its forest policy but they “declined to engage,” according to the letter to shareholders filed with market regulators.

The descendants also want to know how the company plans to comply with the European Union Deforestation Regulation, which bans certain goods linked to deforestation and forest degradation. P&G has said previously it will comply with the requirements.

Some shareholders and environmental non-profits have paid greater attention to P&G’s sustainability policies and practices since 2020. A majority of investors that year passed a non-binding resolution urging P&G to assess how it could enhance efforts to eliminate deforestation and forest degradation in its supply chain.

(Reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)