Oat Milk, the SEC, and Climate Change

Oatly, the Swedish oat milk com­pa­ny, just filed paper­work yes­ter­day (2021−04−19) to go pub­lic. They’re a pret­ty pro­gres­sive and sus­tain­ably mind­ed com­pa­ny so they are upfront about cli­mate change as one of the risk fac­tors for their busi­ness. It’s a nice mix of shock­ing and appre­cia­tive to see the words laid out in a reg­u­la­to­ry fil­ing after the lawyers and finance wonks have fine­ly craft­ed the verbiage.

Additionally, the oats from which our prod­ucts are sourced are vul­ner­a­ble to adverse weath­er con­di­tions and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, such as floods, droughts, frosts, earth­quakes, hur­ri­canes, pesti­lence and other short­ages and dis­ease, which can adverse­ly impact quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty, lead­ing to reduced oat yields and qual­i­ty, which in turn could reduce the avail­able sup­ply of, or increase the price of, our raw mate­ri­als. The mono­cul­tures that we use are also sen­si­tive to dis­eases, pests, insects and other exter­nal forces, which could pose either short term effects, such as result in a bad har­vest one year, or long term effects, which could require new oat vari­eties to be grown. […]

There is also the con­cern that car­bon diox­ide and other green­house gases in the atmos­phere may have an adverse impact on glob­al tem­per­a­tures, weath­er pat­terns and the fre­quen­cy and sever­i­ty of extreme weath­er and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. If such cli­mate change has a neg­a­tive effect on agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, we may be sub­ject to decreased avail­abil­i­ty or less favor­able pric­ing for oats and other raw mate­ri­als that are nec­es­sary for our prod­ucts. Due to cli­mate change, we may also be sub­ject­ed to decreased avail­abil­i­ty of water, dete­ri­o­rat­ed qual­i­ty of water or less favor­able pric­ing for water, which could adverse­ly impact our man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion operations.

Oatly F‑1 Statement

In fact, the Securities and Exchange Commission is wel­com­ing pub­lic input on whether cli­mate change dis­clo­sures are infor­ma­tive enough and how reg­u­la­tions might force com­pa­nies to address envi­ron­men­tal impacts in their offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Apparently, investor demand about cli­mate change has “grown dra­mat­i­cal­ly” since the SEC last looked at in 2010. Gee, I won­der why?

Also, shout-out for the F‑1 name drop­ping indus­tri­al agri­cul­ture’s reliance on mono­cul­tures as pos­ing both short and long term risks to food production.

(via the verge)