Shareholders unanimously vote for Danone to become the first listed ‘Entreprise à Mission’

With the support of more than 99% of its shareholders at its Annual General Meeting at June,26, Danone became the first listed company to adopt the “Entreprise à Mission” model. Now officially embedding in its articles of association a purpose and social, societal and environmental objectives that reflect its conviction that the health of people and the preservation of the planet are interdependent, Danone is taking a new step in the pursuit of a model of sustainable value creation for all its stakeholders.

Progress towards these objectives will be overseen by an independent Mission Committee of ten members, whose names were announced at the Annual General Meeting; it is comprised of eight highly qualified experts mainly from international organizations (Sharan Burrow, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Pascal Lamy, Rose Marcario, Hiromichi Mizuno, David Nabarro, Gabriela Ilian Ramos, Rajiv Shah) as well as one independent Director (Guido Barilla) and one employee (Emna Lahmer).

Emmanuel Faber, Chairman and CEO, said: “At a time where companies are undisputably showing every day their contribution to society as a whole, and with the imperative of collective action, I am thrilled that all our shareholders decided that Danone would become today the first listed Entreprise à Mission. I am convinced that the more our business demonstrates that it is working for all its stakeholders, the more it will create value and be recognized for that. My sincere personal gratefulness goes to each of the members of the newly appointed Mission Committee for having accepted to bring their expertise to oversee and guide our company’s progress towards its social, societal and environmental agenda. Never before has this been attempted at the scale at which we are going to do this together. And finally and foremost a huge thank you to all our shareholders, including the dozens of thousands of my Danone colleagues, who are all also shareholders and voted today, as much as our individual shareholders and our largest institutional shareholders, together, for their unanimous support. You broke a taboo today. And your decision is already a precedent. We are humbled by your trust over the long  term in our ambition to build the most attractive food and beverage platform of the space, as we strive to be ahead of our times to meet the expectations of our brands communities and users, civil society at large and the business challenges of this century”.

The shareholders’ meeting, which was held exceptionnally in closed session given the current health context and to which 63.5% of Danone’s total outstanding share capital was represented, has approved all other resolutions submitted to a vote.