Where is the backbone of the transnational corporate elite?
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Valeeva D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9304262 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundA major challenge to transforming food systems to promote human health and sustainable development is the global rise in the manufacture and consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs). A key driver of this dietary transition is the globalization of UPF corporations, and their organized corporate political activity (CPA) intended to counter opposition and block government regulation. UPF industry CPA and the corporate interest groups who lobby on their behalf have been well described at the national level, however, at the global level, this network has not been systematically characterized. This study aims to map, analyse, and describe this network, and discuss the implications for global food policy action on UPFs, global food governance (GFG), and food systems transformation.MethodsWe conducted a network analysis of the declared interest group memberships of the world's leading UPF corporations, extracted from web sources, company reports, and relevant academic and grey literature. Data on the characteristics of these interest groups were further extracted for analysis, including year founded, level, type, and headquarter location.ResultsWe identified 268 interest groups affiliated with the UPF industry. The UPF manufacturers Nestlé (n = 171), The Coca-Cola Company (n = 147), Unilever (n = 142), PepsiCo (n = 138), and Danone (n = 113) had the greatest number of memberships, indicating strong centrality in coordinating the network. We found that this network operates at all levels, yet key actors now predominantly coordinate globally through multistakeholder channels in GFG. The most common interest group types were sustainability/corporate social responsibility/multistakeholder initiatives, followed by branding and advertising, and food manufacturing and retail. Most corporate interest groups are headquartered where they can access powerful government and GFG decision-makers, nearly one-third in Washington DC and Brussels, and the rest in capital cities of major national markets for UPFs.ConclusionsThe UPF industry, and especially its leading corporations, coordinate a global network of interest groups spanning multiple levels, jurisdictions, and governance spaces. This represents a major structural feature of global food and health governance systems, which arguably poses major challenges for actions to attenuate the harms of UPFs, and to realising of healthy and sustainable food systems.
| S-EPMC10882744 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe global milk formula market has 'boomed' in recent decades, raising serious concerns for breastfeeding, and child and maternal health. Despite these developments, few studies have investigated the global expansion of the baby food industry, nor the market and political practices corporations have used to grow and sustain their markets. In this paper, our aim is to understand the strategies used by the baby food industry to shape 'first-foods systems' across its diverse markets, and in doing so, drive milk formula consumption on a global scale. We used a theoretically guided synthesis review method, which integrated diverse qualitative and quantitative data sources.ResultsGlobal milk formula sales grew from ~US$1.5 billion in 1978 to US$55.6 billion in 2019. This remarkable expansion has occurred along two main historical axes. First, the widening geographical reach of the baby food industry and its marketing practices, both globally and within countries, as corporations have pursued new growth opportunities, especially in the Global South. Second, the broadening of product ranges beyond infant formula, to include an array of follow-up, toddler and specialized formulas for a wider range of age groups and conditions, thereby widening the scope of mother-child populations subject to commodification. Sophisticated marketing techniques have been used to grow and sustain milk formula consumption, including marketing through health systems, mass-media and digital advertising, and novel product innovations backed by corporate science. To enable and sustain this marketing, the industry has engaged in diverse political practices to foster favourable policy, regulatory and knowledge environments. This has included lobbying international and national policy-makers, generating and deploying favourable science, leveraging global trade rules and adopting corporate policies to counter regulatory action by governments.ConclusionThe baby food industry uses integrated market and political strategies to shape first-foods systems in ways that drive and sustain milk formula market expansion, on a global scale. Such practices are a major impediment to global implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, and other policy actions to protect, promote and support breastfeeding. New modalities of public health action are needed to negate the political practices of the industry in particular, and ultimately to constrain corporate power over the mother-child breastfeeding dyad.
| S-EPMC8139375 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Rice breeding has achieved great productivity improvements by semi-dwarf varieties and hybrid vigour. Due to poor understanding of genetic basis of elite backbone varieties, the continuous increasing in rice yield still faces great challenges. Here, 52 elite rice varieties from three historical representative pedigrees were re-sequenced with 10.1× depth on average, and ~6.5 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were obtained. We identified thousands of low-diversity genomic regions and 0-diversity genes during breeding. Using pedigree information, we also traced SNP transmission patterns and observed breeding signatures in pedigree. These regions included the larger number of key well-known functional genes. Besides, 35 regions spanning 0.16% of the rice gnome had been differentially selected between conventional and restorer pedigrees. These genes identified here will be useful to the further pedigree breeding. Our study provides insights into the genetic basis of backbone varieties and will have immediate implications for performing genome-wide breeding by design.
| S-EPMC5428501 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes (BMS) reduces breastfeeding, and harms child and maternal health globally. Yet forty years after the World Health Assembly adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (The Code), many countries are still to fully implement its provisions into national law. Furthermore, despite The Code, commercial milk formula (CMF) markets have markedly expanded. In this paper, we adopt the Philippines as a case study to understand the battle for national Code implementation. In particular, we investigate the market and political strategies used by the baby food industry to shape the country's 'first-food system', and in doing so, promote and sustain CMF consumption. We further investigate how breastfeeding coalitions and advocates have resisted these strategies, and generated political commitment for a world-leading breastfeeding policy framework and protection law (the 'Milk Code'). We used a case study design and process tracing method, drawing from documentary and interview data.ResultsThe decline in breastfeeding in the Philippines in the mid-twentieth Century associated with intensive BMS marketing via health systems and consumer advertising. As regulations tightened, the industry more aggressively promoted CMFs for older infants and young children, thereby 'marketing around' the Milk Code. It established front groups to implement political strategies intended to weaken the country's breastfeeding policy framework while also fostering a favourable image. This included lobbying government officials and international organizations, emphasising its economic importance and threats to foreign investment and trade, direct litigation against the government, messaging that framed marketing in terms of women's choice and empowerment, and forging partnerships. A resurgence in breastfeeding from the mid-1980s onwards reflected strengthening political commitment for a national breastfeeding policy framework and Milk Code, resulting in-turn, from collective actions by breastfeeding coalitions, advocates and mothers.ConclusionThe Philippines illustrates the continuing battle for worldwide Code implementation, and in particular, how the baby food industry uses and adapts its market and political practices to promote and sustain CMF markets. Our results demonstrate that this industry's political practices require much greater scrutiny. Furthermore, that mobilizing breastfeeding coalitions, advocacy groups and mothers is crucial to continually strengthen and protect national breastfeeding policy frameworks and Code implementation.
| S-EPMC8547294 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Integrative transnational analysis to dissect non-obvious tuberculosis transmission events along the migratory route
| PRJEB39695 | ENA
Project description:Caribbean Women's Health and Transnational Ethnobotany. Immigrants from the Dominican Republic (DR) and Haiti are among the top foreign-born communities in New York City (NYC). As people migrate to new countries, they bring their ethnomedical beliefs and practices, and adapt their plant pharmacopoeias. Haiti and the DR share a flora on the island of Hispaniola. In NYC, the flora is limited to what is available in the city. We selected plants for future laboratory research based on ethnobotanical data from two surveys among Dominicans in the DR and NYC, and a Haitian literature review. In both Dominican datasets, gynecological infections were the top women's health condition treated with plants. We identified 10 species for this purpose reported by Dominicans that are also known medicines in Haitian culture, although not yet documented for women's health. Plants for gynecological infections potentially cause dysbiosis of the vaginal microbiota, and may increase rather than prevent disease. There is a public health need to assess traditional medicines for their ability to inhibit pathogenic bacteria, while causing minimal disruption to the vaginal flora. Several species are known antibacterials, but remain to be tested for their efficacy. These results also provide a foundation for a planned ethnobotanical survey among NYC Haitian women.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12231-021-09526-3.
| S-EPMC8432280 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Global greenhouse gas emissions need to reach net-zero around mid-century to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. This decarbonization challenge has, inter alia, increased the political and societal pressure on companies to disclose their carbon footprints. As a response, numerous companies announced roadmaps to become carbon neutral or even negative. The first step on the journey towards carbon neutrality, however, is to quantify corporate emissions accurately. Current carbon accounting and reporting practices remain unsystematic and not comparable, particularly for emissions along the value chain (so-called scope 3). Here we present a framework to harmonize scope 3 emissions by accounting for reporting inconsistency, boundary incompleteness, and activity exclusion. In a case study of the tech sector, we find that corporate reports omit half of the total emissions. The framework we present may help companies, investors, and policy makers to identify and close the gaps in corporate carbon footprints.
| S-EPMC8536701 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Intellectual capital (IC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) provide a strong link between the enterprise and stakeholders. These strategic approaches are responsible in value formation for better financial performance. This study investigates the mediating effects of corporate financial performance on the relationship between IC components (ICs) and CSR of firms from the food industry in Asia. We analyzed 308 firm-year observations of 44 listed firms from 2011 to 2017. The results of this study provided mixed findings regarding the effects of ICs and CSR. In addition, results vary from the disaggregated effects of each IC component on environmental, social, and governance pillars. The results also indicate that the combination of accounting and market-based estimates of financial performance was found to be significant mediating factor to explain the phenomenon which varies per ICs and dimensions of CSR. Lastly, the implications for sustainable business practices and investments in knowledge-based resources in the food industry are elaborated.
| S-EPMC7014449 | biostudies-literature
Project description:China has witnessed the trend of corporate financialization (CF) with some potential risks as the economy slows down its pace in the past decade. In this paper, we explore whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) could work as an information channel to restrain CF or as reputation insurance to promote CF. We find a significant positive relation between CSR and CF, especially for non-SOEs and enterprises with low ownership concentration and high CSR scores. It verifies that the reputation insurance effect by CSR outweighs the information effect and denies the opposite. The results prove robust in tests including sensitivity and endogeneity test. By expanding the scale and adding new aspects to the discussion about how CSR affects CF, this paper provides valuable empirical support to both theorists and practitioners.
| S-EPMC9292106 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In the past two decades, corporate hypocrisy has become a phenomenon that cannot be ignored in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practice (Wagner et al., 2009) and has thus become a concern for management scholars (Cho and Lee, 2019). Using smartPLS, based on attribution theory, this paper takes 28 Chinese listed enterprises as examples to explore the influence of CSR motivation on its communication and implementation, as well as the impact of CSR implementation and promotion on consumers' perception of corporate hypocrisy. The research finds a negative correlation between value-driven motivation and corporate hypocrisy and a positive correlation of performance-driven motivation and stakeholder-driven motivation with corporate hypocrisy. The theoretical contribution of this paper is mainly reflected in the following four aspects. (1) It describes the scale of CSR implementation research and enriches the measurement tools of CSR implementation. (2) It enriches and expands research results in the field of CSR motivation perception. From the perspective of CSR and attribution theory, this study explores the influence of consumers' perception of CSR motivation on CSR communication and CSR implementation. (3) It supplements research results in the field of corporate hypocrisy. The influence of CSR communication and CSR implementation on corporate hypocrisy is clarified. (4) It clarifies the impact of CSR communication on CSR implementation so as to help enterprises better match CSR communication strategy and CSR implementation in practice and reduce consumers' perception of corporate hypocrisy. It is suggested that enterprises find their own positioning on CSR motivation, which provides a reference with which enterprises can make better decisions on CSR communication strategy after implementing CSR behavior and provides empirical evidence for the research on CSR motivation perception and corporate hypocrisy in China.
| S-EPMC7212433 | biostudies-literature