Wingstop, Inc. | Greenhouse gas emissions reporting and goals at Wingstop, Inc.

Status
52.18% votes in favour
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
6
Resolution details
Lead filer
Individual
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Environment
ESG sub-theme
  • GHG targets / emissions
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
RESOLVED: Shareholders request that Wingstop issue a report disclosing its current GHG emissions, as well as short-, medium- and long-term targets for measurably reducing them—and that Wingstop report annually on its progress toward those targets.
Supporting statement
SUPPORTING STATEMENT: Dear fellow shareholders:

We believe governance concerns have arisen about how the Board oversees Wingstop’s management of climate change risks and that shareholder intervention is now needed.

For context, the only time the phrase “climate change” even appears on Wingstop’s website is but one reference in a single sentence, where the company’s Annual Report for 2022 discloses that weather changes resulting from climate change may impact “the price of availability” of “some” ingredients.

Such minimal attention to a materially consequential concern must raise questions about whether the Board even recognizes, let alone adequately manages, climate change risks.

Compare, for example, the single sentence on climate change disclosed by Wingstop to the extensive climate change risks disclosed by other restaurant companies. McDonald’s, for example, publishes a comprehensive “Climate Risk and Resiliency” report and Yum! Brands (owner of KFC) issued a “Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures” report.

These types of extensive climate risk disclosures make sense, as even failing to adequately or fully disclose climate risks can create new risks—something the board should be thoroughly scrutinizing and vigilantly avoiding. And for examples of other companies’ climate risk disclosures, see: TABholdings.org/Climate.

Further, McDonald’s and Yum! (like countless other companies) have also established science-based goals for mitigating their climate impact.

Yum!, for example, says this: “In 2021, we set our first science-based targets (SBTs) and pledged our ambition to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Our target is to reduce emissions by 46% by 2030, compared to a 2019 baseline. These SBTs give us a roadmap for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to levels aligned with the Paris Agreement that limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

By contrast, Wingstop has not published any comprehensive assessments of climate change risks like those discussed above. Nor does the company transparently provide any GHG emissions data from either its operations or supply chain, and it seems to have no policies or goals whatsoever for measurably reducing its emissions.

Given what appears to be an extremely limited climate change assessment by Wingstop, we think it’s time shareholders now step in.

Filed by The Accountability Board.

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