General Mills, Inc. (GIS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. My name is Krystelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the General Mills Force for Good Investor Event, which includes a presentation, followed by a Q&A session with management. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

Good morning. It's an honor to kick off General Mills first-ever Force for Good investor event focused on environmental, social and governance, or ESG, topics. I'm glad you could join us. Stay tuned after our prepared remarks for a live Q&A session. Before we get started, I'll remind you our remarks today forward-looking statements that reflect our current views and assumptions. The supporting presentation on our Investor Relations website includes a list of factors that could cause our future results to be different than our current estimates. Though this is our first ESG-focused investor event, being a Force for Good is not new at General Mills. It's been in our DNA for more than 150 years. When Cadwallader Washburn founded the company that would become General Mills in 1866, he built the largest flour mill of its day on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a pioneer of innovation, Washburn developed new milling methods to create a product that would be marketed as the best flour in the country. 12 years later, on May 2, 1878, catastrophe struck. Sparks ignited highly amble flour dust, a common issue in the industry at the time, and the entire mill exploded. 18 people were killed, and the mill and several city blocks were destroyed. Washburn's immediate concern was for the family of those whose lives were lost. He established a charitable fund to help support them. His next priority was to construct the best, most efficient and safest mill that had ever been built, ensuring this disaster would never happen again. And after developing groundbreaking new dust-collection technology, Washburn did something unexpected. He shared the innovation with his competitors to make the entire milling industry safer. This innovative and forward-looking response helped spur tremendous growth and secure General Mills' position as the industry leader. I share this story about our company's early vision of innovation and being a Force for Good because it remains a core part of our DNA to this day. It reflects our values and it's the lens through which we live our purpose. General Mills exists to make food the world loves. We can't make food the world loves in the morning and be a force for good in the afternoon, we need to do both all the time. The 2 are inextricably linked. Being a Force for Good is a central pillar to our Accelerate strategy, alongside boldly building brands, relentlessly innovating and unleashing our scale. Over the course of today's presentation, we'll share how General Mills is driving significant impact on planetary health, including leading the industry in advancing regenerative agriculture, a key enabler of our commitment to generate net 0 carbon emissions by 2050. We'll also discuss how we are protecting our people, including advancing human rights and diversity and inclusion within and beyond General Mills. And critically, we'll share how we are integrating ESG across our enterprise, from brand strategy development to long-range financial planning. When we think about the success of our business, we need to consider the needs of our many stakeholders: Consumers, employees, shareholders, customers and our communities. Our Force for Good addresses a broad set of climate and social issues and has led us to make bold commitments that benefit all of these stakeholders. We organized our many Force for Good work streams across 4 priority areas: Planet, food, people and community. First, we focus on regenerating our planet by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, advancing regenerative agriculture, protecting key watersheds and making our packaging recyclable or reusable. We've reduced our greenhouse gas emissions footprint by 16% over the past 10 years, and 100% of our 10 priority ingredients are now sustainably sourced. Second, we are improving food security by increasing global access to nutrition-forward foods. We are committed to improving the variety, nutrient density, affordability and accessibility of all of our products. General Mills is the largest provider of natural and organic packaged foods in the U.S., and we recognize the importance of sustainable food systems. Third, we protect our people through our human rights focus and diversity and inclusion commitments. 86% of our employees say that General Mills is a great place to work, and our Force for Good efforts help us attract and retain the very best talent. And finally, we are strengthening our hometown communities through our charitable giving, employee volunteerism and more. In fiscal 2020 alone, our product donations to food banks enabled 29 million meals globally, and 83% of our worldwide employee base volunteered in their communities. These are areas where General Mills can drive meaningful impact, and they're inherently tied to the success and to the resilience of our business. Over the past year, our brands have delivered tremendous impact in support of our Force for Good mission. From Yoplait donating a refrigerated truck to feed those in need, to Gushers and Fruit by the Foot stepping forward to elevate young black voices, our brands are on the move and making a difference. And by doing so, they're connecting deeply with our consumers. When General Mills brands unleash their scale to solve problems, big things happen. We know that you, our shareholders, care deeply about integrating climate and social impact into your investment decisions. Therefore, we remain committed to disclosing our progress on this important work. In fact, General Mills had been reporting on our corporate responsibility efforts for more than 50 years. 6 years ago, we became the first company in any industry to publish a climate goal approved by the Science Based Targets initiative. Our track record of leadership and transparent reporting has been recognized by many organizations. For example, General Mills is currently included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, CDP's A List for climate and water, and the FTSE for Good index series. We recently ranked #6 overall and #1 among CPG companies on Newsweek's Most Responsible Companies list, including earning the highest overall score for social responsibility. Being a Force for Good is an integral part to our leadership, beginning with our Board of Directors. 50 years ago, we became one of the first large public companies to establish a Public Responsibility Committee on our Board. Our entire Board has been deeply engaged in our ESG work, coming at the issues with a diverse set of experiences and perspectives. In fact, of our 11 independent directors, 5 are women and 4 are ethnically diverse. This diverse representation, coupled with our Board's breadth of experience across consumer goods, public policy, global leadership, innovation, finance and risk management, results in high-quality governance over the business' strategic direction and long-term resilience. This diversity of representation and experience is evident in our management team as well. For instance, 50% of our global professional positions and 1/3 of our officer positions are held by women, and we know there is still more work to do to ensure our employee base better reflects the diversity of our consumers, which is proven to lead to stronger business performance. The challenges of the global pandemic have further reinforced the importance of maintaining Force for Good as a core pillar of our strategy. Through the uncertainty of the past year, General Mills has met the moment by taking care of our people and making the food the world loves and needs. Thanks to our team's truly remarkable work, we served a significantly higher global demand for food at home despite supply constraints and many other challenges. We also stepped up to support our communities. For example, we executed a manufacture to donate program, leveraging underutilized away-from-home food production capacity to produce $5 million of General Mills' products which we donated to Feeding America to help nourish families in need. Our General Mills Foundation has given an incremental $9 million in charitable grants during the pandemic to help people around the globe, with a focus on providing emergency food assistance and other basic needs. And our work didn't stop there. Our brands, including Cheerios, Nature Valley, Annie's, Betty Crocker and Blue Buffalo, donated more than 17 million meals to Feeding America food banks. And we provided support globally through our partnership with the Global Foodbanking Network, supporting communities in Brazil, the U.K. and Australia. Most recently, we coordinated with public health officials to host on-site vaccination clinics at our headquarters and more than 20 other sites to keep our employees and our communities safe. These are just a handful of examples of how our teams around the world have responded to the pandemic with compassion, with care and with creativity. Amidst all this good, there is still a lot of work to do. This phrase has embodied the critical issue of racial justice that is top of mind at General Mills. This is especially true today, May 25, which is the anniversary of George Floyd's murder at our hometown of Minneapolis. It has been an emotional and a challenging year, drawing global attention to the systemic racism and inequity that still exists in our society. To drive a more inclusive and equitable society for all, we need to focus both within the 4 walls of General Mills and outside of our broader community. We have prioritized our efforts in areas where our expertise can make the most difference: Equitable food access, equity in education and equity in representation. We come to this moment humbly, recognizing that we have a lot of work to do. It will take bold actions across our society to drive lasting and positive change. And while, out of necessity, we focused on caring for our communities over the past year, we didn't lose sight of our ambitions to take care of our planet. We believe that sustaining our planet's natural systems will not be enough to feed a growing population, we need to regenerate them. That's why more than 2 years ago, we announced a commitment to advance regenerative agriculture practices on 1 million acres of farmland. This will help us achieve 2 important goals: To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% across our full value chain by 2030, and to reach net 0 emission levels by 2050. We also know that making strides in these important areas will help us connect with a growing number of consumers who likewise care about these issues. By weaving purpose and our Force for Good work into our brands, we realize mutual benefit. In a moment, we'll share a few examples from our North America Retail and Asia and Latin America segments where our brands are leveraging their purpose, to make an impact and drive business results. And those are just some of the many brands in our portfolio that are leading with purpose today. While plenty of work remains to be done, I'm optimistic about the future. General Mills remains committed to being a Force for Good as a company and through our brands. And we firmly believe that our business outcomes are increasingly linked to how well we care for our planet, food, people and our communities. As I mentioned earlier, our Force for Good work is both broad and complex. In our remaining time today, we will focus on a few important elements of our planet and people priorities. First, Mary Jane Melendez, our Chief Sustainability and Social Impact Officer, will discuss our initiatives in regenerative of agriculture and recyclable packaging. Then Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer of our North America Retail segment, will share how we're bringing this to life through our Nature Valley brand. And next, Mary Jane will cover our work on human rights and diversity and inclusion. Then Brad and Sean Walker, Group President of our Asia and Latin America segment, will share how we're integrating those messages into our Wheaties and Betty Crocker brands. We'll close our prepared remarks with Kofi Bruce, our CFO, talking about the role of ESG and driving returns for our shareholders. Then we'll open up our question-and-answer session facilitated by Jeff Siemon, Vice President of Investor Relations. With that, I'll turn it over to Mary Jane.

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning. At General Mills, we are thinking and leading differently, unleashing our scale and driving systemic change for the better. As Jeff mentioned, General Mills has been taking actions and reporting on our progress and corporate responsibility for more than 50 years. A decade ago, our main planet initiatives and commitments focused on sustainability, including setting a goal to sustainably source 100% of 10 priority ingredients. We achieved that commitment in fiscal 2020 after 7 years of work. As we advanced our sustainable sourcing work, we also began making strides to reduce agriculture's use of pesticides, synthetic inputs and water required to grow key ingredients for our products. Along the way, we stopped seeing climate change and its effects as abstract models are far off presumptions. We've all begun experiencing extreme weather events with greater intensity and frequency, and these events are having an impact on people's lives and our ability to consistently make food the world loves. For example, a year ago, we faced a challenge sourcing sugar beets due to freezing and thawing across the Northern United States. Meanwhile, dry weather severely reduced crop yields in South America last year, impacting the global price of corn. And just a few months ago, the Texas ice storms disrupted many consumers' access to food and clean water and had a knock-on impact on supply chains. If we can't source key ingredients for our products, our consumers and other stakeholders will be worse off. To make food the world loves for another 150 years, we depend on the Earth's resources, which means we need a healthy and resilient planet. The case for regeneration is strong. Today, we're facing a steep decline in the health of our planet and ecosystems. The world is losing formable topsoil at an unsustainable rate. More than 30% is already degraded, with an alarming 90% of formable topsoil at risk over the next 30 years. When 95% of our food comes from the soil, there's no doubt this is a crisis, especially with an estimated global population of 10 billion people by 2050. That is a lot of families to feed, and our global food system needs regeneration to make that future possible. Agriculture is central to limiting the harmful impacts of a warming climate, too, as 1/3 of the world's emissions come from the food system, nearly 80% of which comes from agriculture. This creates opportunity and urgency for our sector to find solutions and drive impact. We saw the urgent need for change at an important time in our sustainability journey. The more we learned about what makes a sustainable farm work, the more we began to view the farm as a living, connected ecosystem. Healthy farming practices can improve soil health and sequester carbon, pulling it from the air and storing in the soil, making the farm more resilient to extreme weather events. This insight brought about a paradigm shift at General Mills. We realized that sustainability is no longer enough. We need to work in a manner that regenerates the Earth's resources. While we're focusing today's remarks on what we're doing to regenerate agriculture, we see regeneration as a mindset. It informs other aspects of our business, like how we think about making our packaging recyclable or how we'll continue to advance human rights across our value chain. Using our scale to maximize our impact, we are working with farmers to advance regenerative agriculture in key regions where we source our most greenhouse gas-intensive ingredients, such as wheat, oats and dairy. Sourcing these ingredients accounts for 60% of the emissions across our value chain, so we are focusing on the Scope 3 emissions beyond our own operations to drive impact. For us to reach the ambition of reducing our greenhouse gas footprint by 30% by 2030 across our full value chain, and to achieve net 0 emissions by 2050, we need to focus our efforts upstream in agriculture to minimize our impact to our value chain's carbon footprint. There's a lot of promise in regenerative agriculture to do just that. That's why in 2019, we announced a commitment to advance regenerative agriculture practices across 1 million acres of farmland by 2030, which represents approximately 25% of our North American footprint. We focused our efforts and resources on this initiative to maximize our impact. Regenerative agriculture is by far the most critical solution to delivering our 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals, so we've taken the lead in this space within our industry, partnering with farmers, advancing the science and measuring outcomes. Simply put, we are all-in. We're hearing more about regenerative agriculture and industry events, and even in Super Bowl ads, and that's a good thing. But what does it mean and how do we define it? At General Mills, regenerative agriculture is a holistic, principles-based approach to farming and ranching that seeks to strengthen ecosystems and community resilience. We are looking beyond a single ingredient stream, to how the whole farm ecosystem is being managed, and we're partnering with farmers to bring regenerative agriculture principles to life on their farms. The 6 regenerative agriculture principles include: Understanding the context of each farm operation, what works in oats for North Dakota is different than what works for dairy in Michigan, so we need to adapt the principles to each unique farm ecosystem; minimizing soil disturbance by utilizing low- or no-tillage farming techniques; maximizing crop diversity; keeping the soil covered year-round; maintaining a living root in the ground year-round; and integrating livestock wherever possible. When these principles are applied, regenerative agriculture produces measurable improvements. Agriculture is only considered regenerative if it benefits ecosystems and communities. We're taking an outcomes-based approach to regenerative agriculture to assess the holistic impacts of agricultural practices on the farm ecosystem. We are enabling farmers to test and learn so they can drive the most desirable outcomes. With that in mind, we're developing robust scientific methods to measure 4 key outcomes: Economic resilience in farming communities, soil health, water quality and quantity and biodiversity. For example, we measure how soil health, insect and bird biodiversity and farm profitability change as farmers transition to regenerative systems. Making improvements in these measurable outcomes is key to delivering on the promise of regenerative agriculture. To deliver our 1 million-acre commitment by 2030, we are engaging farmers in the regions where we source oats, wheat and dairy to accelerate adoption of regenerative agriculture and increase the capacity of local organizations to grow the movement. We have focused on helping farmers implement regenerative agriculture through several pilot programs in North America. We are looking to unleash our scale in the market where we generate 80% of our global net sales and where we can have the biggest impact. Where we see opportunities to advance regenerative agriculture on key ingredients outside of North America, we will expand our leadership. And by looking beyond our own ingredient-sourcing footprint to address barriers and bottlenecks, we will benefit the whole food industry. We're energized by the level of farmer interest in regenerative agriculture and the demand for resources to support their journey. We now have more than 70 farms in our pilots, with 70,000 acres targeted for regenerative management. This is a great start, and we're building momentum as we learn from early rollouts. We are piloting a range of strategies for accelerating farmer adoption of regenerative agriculture in key sourcing regions. In one pilot strategy in the Southern Plains of the U.S., our partner, Understanding Ag, facilitates a program that provides technical assistance to farmers over a 3-year period, including education, mentorship and connection to a peer network where farmers can connect through field days, discussion groups and social media. In this pilot, we've also introduced an ecosystem service payment which provides an economic support for farmers in exchange for the positive impact they're driving for society. One of our newer pilots involves a partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which will provide grants to local organizations in the Great Lakes Basin and the Southern Great Plains regions of the U.S. This funding will support hiring field conservation professionals to work directly with farmers, developing and implementing stewardship actions and driving positive environmental and economic outcomes. Because we're in the early stages of this work, we are testing different models and remaining agile so that we can help to scale the most effective practices. We are helping implement new technologies to quantify regenerative agriculture's outcomes on farms and the planet. Over time, we'll work to assess impacts across whole supply sheds, and the entire industry will benefit. Because it is labor-intensive and expensive to take soil samples and scout for birds and insects at scale, we need to leverage technology. Utilizing data from satellite imagery, we will track changes in agricultural practices over time, including presence of cover crops and amount of soil tillage. This data will feed models estimating how outcomes, like greenhouse gas emissions and water quality, respond to regenerative agriculture. These technology solutions and numerous studies we are conducting with universities and other scientific partners will help us better understand the complexities of the farm ecosystems and how to help farms thrive in the decades ahead. Our planetary health progress and commitments span our entire value chain, including product packaging, a topic which is top of mind for many consumers. From Annie's Mac and Cheese to Nature Valley Granola Bars and beyond, our brands are designing packaging to be recyclable and reusable to reduce our environmental impact and innovating to make our materials better, not only for General Mills, but the industry. By 2030, 100% of packaging for General Mills brands will be designed to be recyclable or reusable. In 2020, 88% of our U.S. packaging and 72% of our Europe and Australia packaging was recyclable. We're leveraging our global scale to drive bigger impact through our packaging innovation. For example, our Europe and Australia segment team is working to make Old El Paso Mexican meal kits with recyclable packaging and will transfer that team's innovation to our Old El Paso packaging in North America. Now I'll turn it over to Brad Hiranaga to share some big moves we're making in the recyclable packaging space that are resulting in industry-leading innovation.

Thank you, Mary Jane, and hello, everyone. My name is Brad Hiranaga, and I'm the Chief Brand Officer of our North America Retail segment. As General Mills' largest segment, we are uniquely positioned to deliver on the company's mission of being a Force for Good. When we build our brands with purpose and unleash our scale, we can drive tremendous impact. I'm excited to talk about how our Nature Valley brand is creating a more recyclable future. Nature Valley is a brand of firsts. We started with a big one when we created the world's first-ever granola bar. Now after 3 years of research and development work, we have released the first-ever recyclable snack bar wrapper approved for store drop off. The new wrapper is now rolling out in our Crunchy bar line and will extend to the rest of the U.S. Nature Valley portfolio by 2025. Just like Washburn in the 1800s, we chose not to patent the wrapper, rather to encourage other brands across the industry to apply the technology and innovation to their own products. We aim to use our global scale for good and make an even bigger impact on our industry and the planet. This action by Nature Valley is intended to be a catalyst for kickstarting a flywheel of good and growth. Going the store drop-off route allowed us to tap into a system that is already in place at major retail stores across the U.S. From Hartman Group's sustainability report in 2019, we know 70% of the U.S. population wants to decrease plastic waste, but doesn't know how. And more than 90% of Americans are within 10 miles of a store drop-off recycling station. Those numbers add up to a potential 295 million people who could participate in store drop-off recycling. It's really exciting that these wrappers now have a life after Nature Valley. They can be turned into things like composite lumber and decking equipment, or even park benches and playgrounds. Check it out. [Presentation]

This is just one example of how our brands in North America retail are solving real human problems and growing with heart. When you consider the powerful work we're doing to advance our Force for Good missions across many of our brands, you can see it will drive a positive impact on planetary health and drive stronger growth for our business. I'm now going to toss it back to Mary Jane, to talk about the way we protect our people.

At General Mills, we put people first across our full value chain. From sourcing ingredients to making and selling more than 100 brands around the world, we are committed to providing employees with a safe, inclusive and rewarding workplace. Our ability to deliver on that commitment is one of the reasons we've remained in business for more than 150 years. Let me share more about our commitment to people, including our human rights framework, racial equity commitments and why diversity and inclusion have long been critical to driving business results. We believe that societies, economies and businesses thrive when human rights are protected and respected, and that human rights abuses of any kind are unacceptable. As one of the world's leading food companies, we have the responsibility to respect human rights throughout our business and value chain. And while philanthropic programs can play a necessary role in mitigating human rights risks, those programs alone do not offset the potential impact within our value chain. Recently, we launched an internal initiative to assess and address our human rights impact in alignment with the United Nations Guiding Principles, or UNGPs, on business and human rights. To better understand our human rights risks and to guide our work, we are following a strategy framework. This includes: Identifying the greatest human rights risks across our value chain and prioritizing the most salient issues; integrating human rights expectations into policies and business practices; including our human rights policy and supplier code of conduct; and effectively mitigating risks and remedying harm through stakeholder engagement, taking action and tracking progress. We will advance this initiative and expand our disclosures in line with the UNGP reporting framework. Our focus over the coming year includes building due diligence capabilities to proactively identify human rights risks and take action through our global responsible sourcing program. Our journey to advance respect for human rights is one of continuous improvement, and we'll share more on that progress in the 2022 edition of our Global Responsibility Report. Within the 4 walls of General Mills, we work hard to foster a culture of inclusion and belonging that allows all employees to thrive. Ensuring diversity of input and perspectives is core to our business strategy. We work to build a culture that acknowledges, respects and values all dimensions of diversity, including gender, race, sexual orientation, ability, backgrounds and beliefs. We are committed to advancing racial equity within and outside our workplace, and we have taken many actions to create a diverse and inclusive culture, from recruiting and developing a diverse Board and senior leadership team to advancing legislative actions in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Our work to build a diverse and inclusive culture continues to evolve. More than 4 years ago, we launched an event series called Courageous Conversations to give our employees space to have candid discussions about important topics, such as the Me Too movement, the recent verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, and the rise of Asian hate in the U.S. Roughly 1,500 employees participate in each session, and those who attend report an increased commitment to engaging their colleagues' unique perspectives at work. As another example, we've invested significant resources into developing content and training on allyship, and we've made that content available to the public to help others accelerate their own allyship journeys. After today's event, I'd encourage you to check out that content at generalmills.com/allyship. Our leadership team is held accountable to serving as champions of inclusion and allyship, and they expect the same from their teams. We regularly measure our progress in fostering a culture of inclusivity. George Floyd and Daunte Wright's killings in our hometown community served as a wake-up call to the broader and complex picture of systemic inequality that black people face globally. We stand united against all acts of racism and are committed to humbly learning and finding authentic ways to be part of the solution. We are a founding member of the Minnesota Business Coalition for Racial Equity, which brings together more than 50 Minnesota-based corporations and community partners to help drive meaningful change toward a better Minnesota, specifically with and for black Minnesotans. At General Mills, we are steadfast in our commitment to drive change by focusing on equitable food access, equity in education and equity in representation. We've already begun acting against our commitment to drive equity in education in our hometown community. Research from the Institute of Labor Economics shows that black students who have even 1 black teacher in elementary school are more likely to go to college and less likely to drop out of high school. In the U.S., only 2% of teachers are black males, and that figure is just 0.5% in Minnesota. So Box Tops for Education partnered with a nonprofit organization called Black Men Teach, and is providing $500,000 for scholarships and loan forgiveness to help increase the number of black male teachers in Minneapolis area classrooms. And to engage our consumers on this issue, we're enhancing our Box Tops mobile app to make it easier for participants to find and support schools in need. To deliver on our commitment to equitable representation, we have committed to improving racial equity in the U.S. by taking 3 specific actions: Doubling the representation of black managers, increasing minority representation in our workforce to 25% and doubling our spend with minority-owned suppliers. To increase our spend with minority-owned suppliers, we prioritize our supplier diversity program. We have more than 50 years of experience growing relationships with diverse suppliers in the U.S., and we have expanded the program globally. Through partnerships with advocacy organizations, we match diverse suppliers with our business opportunities. We see benefits from the program, including increased innovation and more market insights about our increasingly diverse consumers, and we drive positive social impacts, leveraging more robust data analysis by providing opportunities to underrepresented groups and fostering job creation and economic development. We know intuitively that a diverse and inclusive workforce will better help us to deliver our Accelerate strategy and recent research backs up our intuition. A McKinsey study from May 2020 found that the greater the gender diversity on executive teams, the higher the likelihood of that company's profit outperformance. In fact, there is a substantial performance differential of 48% between the most and least gender-diverse companies. The findings on ethnic and cultural diversity are equally compelling. The same McKinsey study found that greater ethnic representation creates a higher likelihood of outperformance. Similarly, research by the Wall Street Journal found that socially diverse groups are more innovative and productive than homogeneous groups. We've been on a journey to transform how we bring innovative new products to market with agility, and this research confirms our belief that building diverse teams is critical to our success. Bottom line, it's the right thing to do and the business case is clear. Now I'll let Brad and Sean shed light on how we're advancing inclusion through our brands.

Wheaties has been featuring athletes on the box for almost 90 years, starting with Lou Gehrig in 1934. And over the past year, Wheaties has been on a journey to transform into an empowering platform to inspire the next generation of champions. The brand first partnered with black athletes, starting with Jackie Robinson in 1949. And when the fight for racial justice came to the forefront last year following the murder of George Floyd, we knew Wheaties could take a meaningful stance behind his purpose, redefining a champion from someone who's just on top of their sport to someone who's also a champion off the court or field, making people's lives better. We took the leads from champions themselves, most recently with Serena Williams, LeBron James and Tommie Smith, for speaking out and inspiring the next generation to keep fighting for change. First, in June 2019, Wheaties partnered with Serena Williams, focusing on her position as an activist athlete. [Presentation]

Serena then shared her moment in the spotlight by helping launch the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team onto a weeds box during this time. Serena believes a champion embodies a person in all aspects of his or her life, and she was proud to share her time on the box to show women supporting women and to inspire the next generation of girls. Then we honored LeBron James as our next Wheaties Champion in October of 2020. He was featured in the box, along with several families from LeBron James' Family Foundation's I PROMISE program. Wheaties donated to the program and highlighted LeBron's mission to address rational inequity through education in his community. And just this past February, in celebration of Black History Month and the With Drawn Arms documentary, we created a Wheaties box featuring the original activist athlete himself, Tommie Smith. All sales of this box are being donated to the NAACP, and the Wheaties box will continue serving as a platform to celebrate courageous action. I'll give you a brief summary of the impact. Between June 2020 and April 2021, Wheaties sold more than 5.5 million boxes featuring champions who stand for racial equity. These boxes remind consumers of color that Wheaties Champions are for them and for their future. In partnership with Serena, LeBron and Tommie, Wheaties generated more than 1.6 billion impressions, the brand's Instagram fan base grew by 40%, and the business returned to retail sales and market share growth. And most importantly, Wheaties and their champions have supported organizations leading the fight for civil rights, like the NAACP and the Equal Justice Initiative, with donations totaling nearly $900,000. Wheaties and General Mills brands are on a mission to inspire the next generation and use their platforms to make the world a better place. Now I'll turn it to Sean Walker to share an example of how this comes to life in our international business.

Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. I'm Sean Walker, Group President of our Asia and Latin America segment. Diversity and inclusion is a Force for Good priority for Team ASLA, too. We begin each equity conversation in our own communities and look for opportunities to scale up our impact. Building upon our work in Minnesota, General Mills and other companies in Brazil founded a business coalition to promote racial equity. And I'm incredibly proud of our continued effort to advance inclusion on a global scale through our purpose-driven brands. Our recent Betty Crocker brand campaign in the Middle East is a great example of our dedication to being a Force for Good and our ongoing commitment to our legacy of corporate responsibility. In celebration of Betty Crocker 100th anniversary, the brand team in the Middle East launched a new campaign titled The Kitchen is for Everyone, focused on promoting gender equality and inclusivity in the kitchen and beyond. The campaign was inspired by a 10-year-old boy who lives at the United Arab Emirates, named Sultan. He sparked a viral debate about gender equality when he noticed that Betty Crocker Arabic packaging only spoke to women. After hearing Sultan's story, the Betty Crocker team worked to create meaningful change across the Middle East. Let me show you the advertising. [Presentation]

This campaign served to promote positivity and create lifelong memories for people of all genders, ages and backgrounds. As part of the campaign, we redesigned the region's entire line of Betty Crocker products with gender-neutral language. The new gender-neutral packs have been rolled out across stores, supported by television and digital ad campaign that encourages consumers to make more memorable moments with Betty in a kitchen where everyone belongs. The outcomes have been powerful. Not only did Betty Crocker grow its reported net sales more than 20% in the Middle East region, 70% of consumers surveyed in Saudi Arabia say that they believe that the kitchen should be a shared responsibility upon seeing the ad campaign. That's up from 40% before seeing the ad. This Betty Crocker campaign is yet another example of how our purpose-driven brands are driving change and relevance with consumers. With that, let me turn it over to Kofi Bruce to discuss how our Force for Good work drives returns for shareholders.

Thanks, Sean, and hello, everyone. Our Force for Good mission plays an important role in driving long-term shareholder returns. We are integrating our Force for Good commitments across the enterprise, from brand strategy development to long-range financial planning and capital management. For this reason, I serve on our Sustainability Governance Committee, and I am actively working to integrate ESG across our strategic planning and global finance functions. I'll touch on a few key areas of financial integration today. In order to drive top-tier shareholder returns, we focus on 4 levers: Sustainable sales growth, margin expansion to grow profit faster than sales, capital discipline convert earnings into cash, and returning that cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Force for Good is embedded across the shareholder return model. First, on a sustainable sales growth, a recent Harris poll indicated that, all else equal, nearly 80% of consumers would switch brands if a more sustainable version were available. Research published by the NYU Stern School of Business found that while sustainability marketed products are only 16% of the market, they drove more than half of the growth. And among branded players, sustainability marketed products grew more than 7x faster than other products, indicating consumers' willingness to pay premium prices. Our job, as Brad and Sean highlighted, is to weave purpose into our brands to increase their relevance with consumers and to drive strong profitable growth over the long term. Next, on margins and profitability, we are making strategic choices to invest financial and human capital into our Force for Good work. These investments, coupled with our potential to transform ingredient supply by advancing regenerative agricultural practices will make our business more resilient and adaptable to change in the future. We'll fund these investments through holistic margin management and other efficiency initiatives, enabling us to stay on track to our long-term profit growth goals. Finally, we're integrating Force for Good into the ways we manage capital and cash. In April, we were the first U.S. consumer packaged goods company to enter a sustainability-linked revolving credit facility, which includes a pricing structure tied to our progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and using renewable electricity in our owned operations. Pragmatic long-range planning requires an understanding of the risk that climate change presents to our future business results. To that end, General Mills signed on as a supporter of the task force for climate-related financial disclosure, or TCFD, in 2019. And in 2020, we commissioned Trucost to assess our risks related to climate change, including physical risks as well as risks associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy using a robust data-driven approach. You can find more information about this framework in our 2021 Global Responsibility Report which we released in April. And you'll continue to see more climate-related risk disclosure from us in the coming years. In closing, I hope you've seen how being a Force for Good is a part of our DNA and a central element of our Accelerate strategy, and how we're leading in this space, integrating our ESG efforts across the enterprise, and how it drives value for all our stakeholders. Thank you for joining us this morning and for your interest in General Mills. With that, we will transition to the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions]

Good morning, everyone. This is Jeff Siemon, Vice President of Investor Relations for General Mills. We're -- thank you so much for joining this ESG investor event today. We're now going to kick off our Q&A session with management, and this session is going to include a mix of live questions as well as some questions that I've received in the e-mail over the past couple of days that I'll mix in as well. Just so you all know, I'm joined remotely today by Jeff Harmening, Chairman and CEO; Kofi Bruce, our CFO; Brad Hiranaga, our Chief Brand Officer for North America Retail; Mary Jane Melendez, our Chief Sustainability and Social Impact Officer; and Sean Walker, Group President of our Asia and Latin America segment. With that, Krystelle, why don't you please open the line for questions?

Your first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays.

You touched on this a little bit, but maybe just to clarify it, are sustainability investments expected to be earnings-neutral? In other words, will they be funded through structural cost efficiencies and growth leverage such that General Mills does not expect shareholders to pay for the increased investment behind sustainability?

Sure, Andrew, let me field that. Yes, absolutely. This is Kofi, Andrew, thanks for the question. So as I noted in my remarks, we're committed to our shareholder return model and delivering top-tier shareholder returns. And we expect to offset these investments through cost savings and structural efficiencies along the way and ensure that we deliver our long-term profit goals. The investments that we are evaluating as we look at investments support our sustainable top line growth because they are, at the end of the day, things that consumers care about. For example, we've driven savings by selling back energy in excess of our renewable energy credits, and we expect that to generate significant savings over a 15-year period of the agreement. And as we look ahead, the long-term resilience of our supply chain and our value chain might look like cost avoidance, especially as you see things like future carbon pricing coming in. So we feel confident that we have the flexibility to offset these and remain committed to our top-tier shareholder return commitment.

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Zaslow with Bank of Montreal.

First of all, congratulations on going well beyond what most packaged food companies have done. Can you talk about the challenges involved in measuring Scope 3? But also in terms of working with suppliers to reduce their emissions, what happens if suppliers are noncompliant?

So Ken, thanks for the question. Let me just say -- first, I appreciate your offering up that we are looking at Scope 3. I think it's one of the things that distinguishes General Mills. A lot of companies make commitments around Scope 1 and 2, but we're interested in not only that, but Scope 3 emissions as well. So with that, Mary Jane, why don't you provide a little -- some thoughts on that?

Absolutely. Thank you, Ken, for the question. So our Scope 3 emissions account for about 95% of our total greenhouse gas emissions footprint. So that really is, for General Mills, a stretch and going above and beyond our 4 walls at General Mills. And I would say on of the biggest areas of challenge and opportunity is really building the science behind the power of soil to sequester carbon. As we look at our greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture and transformation represent about 60% of our emissions footprint, so it's critical that we help to advance the science to help show that there is power in soil carbon sequestration over time, and that returning that soil to health really helps to sequester greenhouse gas emissions for the long term. When you talk about the supplier piece, what's really important, and an approach that we have taken at General Mills, is we have been advancing regenerative agriculture practices, for example, in partnership with our suppliers. So we're working with suppliers like ADM and our wheat pilot in Kansas and going right to the farmers to help them improve their own emissions because it helps General Mills that they improve our Scope 3 emissions at the same time.

And what happens if a supplier is in noncompliance? How does that play out? And how much is it a partnership versus how much do you have to take them off? Like how does that work? And I'll leave it there, and I appreciate it very much.

Sure. Absolutely. So I would say we're early in the journey on regenerative agriculture. So we have a smaller number of suppliers that are engaged in our pilot programs. We have not yet faced a circumstance where we have had a pilot in -- a supplier in noncompliance. I would say we tend to be very thoughtful about suppliers that we engage to ensure that they are like-minded partners, that they have the same ambitious climate goals that are aligned to General Mill's values and our own ambitions. So thankfully, we've been in the position where we have not had to take them out of compliance at this point.

Your next question comes from the line of Faiza Alwy with Deutsche Bank.

So you've talked about leading the ESG effort in the space, and I'm curious if you're doing more in terms of collaboration with your competitors and if you think there's more opportunity to do that. And if so, how do you balance sort of that collaboration and the Force for Good versus the competitive dynamics in the space?

Well Faiza, let me give a couple of opening thoughts, and then I'll turn it over to Mary Jane to see if she has anything to complement. First, I would say that there are many areas where we need to collaborate with competitors, and I would cite recycling as an area for that. I mean, the whole recycling system in the U.S. and even in Europe is pretty broken. And so unless we collaborate together to not only reduce our amount of plastic waste, but also collaborate to really fix a broken system, we're not going to get anywhere. And we do that through things like trade associations. For example, I'm the Chair of the Consumer Brands Association, and recycling is one of our top priorities and addressing the whole recycling system. And so we do that in conjunction with our competitors, but other trade groups, the government NGOs. And so there are a lot of things that we need to do together even while we pursue our own specific goals. So with that, Mary Jane, anything you'd like to add to that?

Yes. Thank you, Jeff. And I would say, building off Jeff's comment, while we compete fiercely in the food space, we don't compete in the area of doing good. And we are working precompetitively with some of our other CPG peers, exploring areas where we can come together to collaborate around regenerative agriculture. While General Mills was the first company to make a regenerative agriculture commitment back in 2019, we've likely seen several other CPG companies follow on in the past few months. And we have been in collaboration with them looking to understand where there are overlapping supply sheds where, for example, both companies are sourcing wheat or dairy. So I would expect that you will see, in 2022 and beyond, us talking more about that work that we're doing precompetitively with other food companies.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Moskow with Crédit Suisse.

Jeff, I wanted to know, when you set your targets for ESG, how do you benchmark yourself against your peer set or against just the broader industry? Some of these numbers sound great, but like, for example, getting to, I think it was net 0 carbon emissions by 2050, is that. Ahead of your peers? Is it in line with peers? And as you look at all these different metrics, are there some areas where you really want to be ahead? And are there other areas where it's okay to be in line? Are there some that are more important than others?

Yes. Good question, Rob. The first thing I would say is that, when we set our targets, we certainly understand what our peers are doing. I think it's important to understand the context around us. But even more importantly, we make sure that when we set targets that they're actually tied to our business strategy. And every company has a unique business strategy and so do we. And so the commitments that we make are tied to our Accelerate strategy and are part of our overall business strategy. And so while we look at industry benchmark and then we looked at peers in that context is important. We really do the right thing for our business, and as a result, for General Mills shareholders. When it comes to understanding how we compare to our peers across a few different areas, what I would say, General Mills, like other companies, can't do everything. But what we can do is that we can lead in the areas that are most important to our business and have the greatest outcome for the environment. And where those things overlap, we want to make sure we lead. And that's why you hear us talk quite a bit about regenerative agriculture, for example, and why you -- why we have set ambitious goals for greenhouse gas admissions which are tied to regenerative agriculture. And so you see us be very, very active in that area. There are other areas where we're probably leading in those areas, there are other areas where we're probably with our peers. So you think about plastics and recycling where we don't have nearly the plastic waste stream that many of our competitors do. And while it's important to reduce the amount of plastics in the system, it's probably not the top for General Mills because it's not the close -- or most closely linked to our business strategy nor the outcomes for our business. So I guess that's what -- so anyway, we do watch our peers. But in some areas where we have competitive advantage and where we think that it's most important to our business, we want to make sure that we are leading. Mary Jane, anything you would add to that?

Jeff, I would say that's well said. We do watch closely what our peers and other sustainability leaders are doing in the space, benchmarking annually and tracking that. We also really look at what the latest science calls for. So we are part of the Science Based Target initiative and had them approve our 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals, and aligned to that latest science, to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 C versus 2 degrees C, which many companies are still set at yet today.

Okay. This is Jeff Siemon, I'm going to add one in that I've received via e-mail. So this question is actually for Sean Walker. Sean, we -- you hear a lot about sustainability and ESG focus in the developed markets, in the U.S. and Europe in particular. How do you see this playing out, especially with respect to consumers, as you get into your part of the world in Asia and Latin America? And Sean, if you're there, you might be on mute.

Jeff, can you hear me?

Yes. Now we can.

Okay. It must have been a technical thing on the operator's side. First thing I'd say, Jeff. All the work we do is directly related to our consumers. And we spend a lot of time understanding what's important to our consumers and how causes impact how they think and how they behave. In -- across Latin America and the rest of the emerging world, I would say that causes around the sustainability, racial equity are just as important as they are in the developed world. Brazil, for example, the Amazon and the impact of what we're doing in Brazil, very, very important to business and consumers. I would say, across markets such as India, women and kind of how women are treated, very important cause. So as we look at our brands and the causes that we choose to pursue and things we choose to take action on, it's directly related to our consumers' interests.

Excellent. Thanks, Sean. Krystelle, I'll turn it back to you.

Your next question comes from the line of Alexia Howard with Bernstein.

Thank you so much for the session today. This was very illuminating. I have 2 questions, if that's okay. The first of all -- first one is really about accountability and incentives. So can you elaborate more on how -- the goal of net 0 by 2050. How will the current and subsequent management teams be held accountable for making progress towards that goal along the way? Because obviously, the management team, as much as we'd love them to be around forever, there's clearly going to be turnover over that space of time. And then my second question is kind of on a different topic. But how are you monitoring your advertising to children, and particularly amongst about whether there's a skew towards more marketing spend of less healthy products to children and youth of color? There was a University of Connecticut Rudd Center study that came out in January of 2019, and General Mills was definitely not singled out in there, it's a general -- it seems to be a general problem across the industry. But I'm just curious about what steps you're taking to address that as well.

Yes. Thanks, Alexia, for those 2 questions. Let me answer the first one, which I think is primarily about governance. And the second one about marketing to children, I'll give a little bit of an overview, then I'll turn it over to Brad Hiranaga to see if he has any thoughts. But as to the accountability for future generations. I mean, yes, we'd like to be around for a long time, too. But management teams do have to pass the baton from one team to the next. And the question is how do we hold ourselves accountable? I would say that there are a couple of ways. In the short term, certainly, I have as my personal objective as both the Chairman of the Board and the CEO, I have ESG goals written in my individual performance appraisal. So for the short term, it's fairly straightforward. For the longer term, I would offer you 2 things. The first is that General Mills has a Public Responsibility Committee, and it wasn't created yesterday. In fact, we've had a Public Responsibility Committee on our Board of Directors for 50 years. And I would challenge other companies whether they have a sustainability committee that lasted that long. And so the governance that oversees, not only our entire strategy, but also our ESG strategy, has been in place for many, many decades, which has offered us quite a bit of continuity. And so as a management team, the management team reviews, our goals and our progress toward our goals with the Public Responsibility Committee on a regular basis. So as we pass from one management team to the next, the Board of Directors would really be the primary governance to it, which is where I think that it should be. The other thing I would give you is evidence that this actually works. I'll give you 2 pieces. One is that we had a commitment starting in 2010 that we would get our top 10 ingredients sustainably sourced by 2020, and we did that. And that's through a CEO change in 2017, when Ken Powell was the CEO and he passed the baton to me. And so we kept that commitment. I Would also say that as it relates to the Scientifically Based Targets, we started that out in 2017 as well, and that's transitioned. In fact, we've only made the -- we've only strengthened those commitments over time. And the same would be true of soil health. We started a soil health journey under Ken's leadership, and we -- I think we've built on that under my leadership as the CEO to incorporate soil health, but really double down on regenerative agriculture, which we think can have a benefit to soil health but also greenhouse gas emission reduction. So that's a question about governance. I'm highly confident that General Mills as a company, we do what we say we're going to do. And we have good governance placed at the Board to make sure that future generations of leaders hold the commitments that we make. In terms of marketing to children, the first I would say, we have -- General Mills has stringent guidelines on whom we can market, at what ages and what products. And probably, the products we market most to people under 18 is going to be breakfast cereal. And it's the category where we've made significant strides in improving the nutritional credentials of our cereal, which is probably why we're not called out specifically in the [ Red Report ] because we've reduced sugar significantly, reduced sodium significantly. And importantly, we've increased nutrient density by adding back whole grains. So whole grains is the #1 ingredient in all Big G cereals. And so as we think about marketing to people under 18, we market only products that are going to have nutrition density, and we feel good about our efforts to do that. So with that, Brad, do you want to offer any other insights?

Yes. Sure, Jeff. So Alexia, one of the other pieces to this is, as a company, we always strive to earn our consumers' trust every day. And we have high standards for responsible marketing. And so as Jeff mentioned, within the governance that we've got, we have a Responsible Marketing Council which oversees our policies, our compliance. And then we actually look across our product development and brand marketing as well to provide guidance there. And General Mills as a company takes steps to ensure that our advertising is only going to air on programming that we deem suitable, audience-appropriate and is relevant for the brand. And so of course, we design our marketing to comply with all of the appropriate laws. And so specifically, and Jeff mentioned some of this already, but when it comes to marketing to children, we have specific policies. And so regardless of the nutrition profile of the product, we do not engage in advertising directly to children under 6. And then we also do not direct any marketing to children under 13 unless that product meets strict nutrition standards. And nutrition standards are set by the CFBAI, which is the Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, which is operated by the Better Business Bureau. And we're, actually at General Mills, is a founding member of the CFBAI and engage in other self-regulatory programs around the world. So we're very heavily actively involved, not just as a company but as an industry as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs.

I'll just echo the sentiment of a lot of other people who shared. Thank you for this, thanks for the presentation, it's enlightening. And thank you for all the actions you're taking. I think you mentioned in your remarks that, effectively, the message was doing good -- you're doing good not just for the sake of doing good, but because you also believe it's good for business. And I love the NYU stats you shared. But one, can you give us any more tangible examples where your efforts have led to a measurable competitive advantages? And second, can you talk about how this may compare across markets and across generations?

So thanks for the question, Jason. Brad, do you want to start with that one?

Yes, absolutely. Jason, for us, it's been a journey on brand purpose over the last 2 years and I think part of this, the actions that General Mills have taken have, it's always been -- being a Force for Good has been in our DNA. But as we started really thinking about how do our brands need to elevate beyond the purpose they serve for our consumers, we actually have 8 of our $1 billion brands that have now articulated a Force for Good ambition that is really built into the foundation of our brand. That's how seriously that we take it and how much we believe that being a Force for Good is a force for growth. And so I'll give you an example, and this -- we have a framework of around hunger and around food and planning in the communities, that our brands then look to figure out where do they want to spend their time to solve a big problem? And again, it's not just for a [ joy-filled impact ] purposes, it's for purposes of driving what we think -- what we know consumers are really going to care about. So one of the areas is Cheerios. And Cheerios, as you might know, is a brand that really exists to put positive energy into the world. And as our flagship brand, and Cheerios has actually been the light out front, and it's paved the way for many of our brands to expand beyond that purpose, and really embed Force for Good into their strategy. And so one of the big problems that Cheerios is looking to solve is that hundreds of million people suffer from heart disease in a year. And in fact, 1 in 4 Americans die from it. And so Cheerios has made a simple oath, that nourish your heart. And the brand has really now established the mission to say we want to change the trajectory of heart health in America. We're going to be a Force for Good in that way. And so that led them to do things like changing their iconic O to a heart shape in honor a heart health month, and making that cholesterol-lowering benefit, obviously, more joy-filled. And the business has been growing and beating competition based on this heart health benefit. In fact, in April, the dollar share was the strongest for Honey Nut Cheerios since April 2010. And so while it's great to say these things make us feel good as a company and they build our community and we attract talent, but the bottom line is it also really drives our business. And we see better ideas and we see better growth when we follow our Force for Good principles and set big ambitions for change.

That's helpful. And can you talk about how that impact may vary across the markets and generations? So for example, are you seeing ESG-centric messaging just resonating more with one cohort of consumers in influencing behavior differently with one cohort versus others and similarly across markets?

Yes. I'll take the first stab at that, too. I think given the portfolio that we have, the breadth of our portfolio we have, is that we have many different consumers that we serve. And so it is interesting just to see how different generations have different problems they want companies or brands to address. And so an interesting one that's more relevant for this last year is actually one of our Fruit Snacks brand, Fruit Gushers. And Gushers is a brand that is serving many multiple consumers and teens and young adults who love the brand. And over the years, that brand has partnered with a lot of black creators and entertainers and athletes. And what we found is that those consumers expect that brand take a stand with them. So in fact, 70% of Gen Z in that audience says that they purchased or are going to consider purchasing this to show support for the issues that, that brand supports. And so in that case specifically, we see an opportunity to stand up and talk about the things that our brand cares about, the value that we have. And so back when George was murdered this past year, that brand stood up and said, "Hey, we're seeing a problem that we think we can solve. That is, black voices have frequently been suppressed across social platforms. And we want more of those voices to be heard." And teens, who are big advocates in this space and social justice, they want to get back and get involved, but they don't have the disposable income to do it. And so Gushers then said, "Okay. We're going to help and donate and partner with the NAACP and Youth & College Division to appropriate resources to empower teens and teen leaders. And in that instance, it created a marketing program to elevate 4 young black creators on TikTok and turn their videos into tools for change and donated $1 to every -- NAACP for every like that they got. And so the results of that were a huge donation back to those great partners, but they also helped to drive resonance with that brand with teens and with young adults. And so to your question, it differs by audience in what they're looking for. But certainly, as we -- as this next generation of adults that are coming to the market, they care a lot about what brands stand for. So it's very important for our brands to take a stand and for it take action against things that falls within their values.

Yes. And Brad, this is Sean. Just to build a little bit on what Brad said, I'll first speak to the example that we showed in the video, of the young man who -- in the Middle East, who said, "Look, the packaging that Betty Crocker has speaks to women and boys in the kitchen for everyone." We picked up on that. That was something that resonated significantly in the Middle East. Look, women ought to be treated equally. Men ought to feel comfortable being in the kitchen and cooking. That campaign resonated significantly in the marketplace, drove growth, and actually, across social media blew up. So that kind of brand purpose connected to consumers' desires really works across multiple markets. We ran another campaign on our Old El Paso business, which was about food wastage through Ramadan, that we will donate a pack of 6 tortillas to a food bank for every Old El Paso package purchased. Really wrap it up. Take your food waste, wrap it up. And look, it can become a terrific meal if you use leftovers in that matter. Again, something highly effective, resonant with consumers and were quite effective.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Lavery with Piper Sandler.

You mentioned a couple of examples, like the Nature Valley wrappers and then of course the Betty Crocker in the Middle East, where you have the message as an important part of the communication to consumers. But there's a much longer list of things you're doing, of many of -- most of which probably don't lend themselves to that nearly as easily, at least. How important is it to communicate these things to consumers? Is it something you're going to look to work in more and more? And a little bit related to that, what about the retail trade as your customer -- is this something that comes up in those conversations as well?

Good question, Michael. Brad, you want to follow on with that?

Absolutely. Michael. Yes. So I mentioned a little bit in the previous answer that we believe in brands with purpose, and that's why we build our brands with it. And to your point about consumers, and Sean's hit this a few times, too. Our consumers do care about brands that share their values. One of our agency partners, BBMG, who we work with, just surveyed recently and found that 65% of consumers say they want to support companies with a strong social and environmental purpose. And sustainable brands who we work with as well found that 88% of consumers want brands to help them lead a sustainable lifestyle. So we know the interest and desire is there. And there's also a business case for addressing racial equity. Tough issues that brands met it straight away, from even just a couple of years ago, 67% of Americans say they would support a company speaking up and addressing social justice by purchasing a product from that company. So we see consumers saying that they tell us that when we talk to them. Annie's is a brand, is a really good example. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for Mac and Cheese or Cheddar Bunnies or Fruit Snacks because the organic seal and the sustainable deals that they have is an important part of Annie's consumer proposition. So we see the opportunity again to really continue to integrate this into our brands, and not just be a nice side thing that we do, but truly be part of our full brand proposition. And I'll just go back to reiterate kind of what Kofi said on the business -- ESG and in videos, is that research published by NYU School of Business says that, while sustainable-marketed products are only 16% of the market, they drove more than half the growth. And among branded players, sustainable market products grew more than 7x faster than other products. So it shows contributed are willing to pay for them. And so we see the opportunity, again, to do so much good as a company, but we also see the opportunity to really grow just given where consumers are looking for brands and for companies to lead.

And Brad, to build off that just really quickly here, to Michael's question about retailers, we also find retailers are also very interested in this topic. One of the things we've been doing for a few years now is working with -- through them on our Box Tops for Education program. And feel great about the traction we have there because all our retailers are local, and they know that their customers really believe in education. So our retailers are -- have been involved with us on ESG kind of initiatives, and we think will be increasingly so.

And your last question comes from the line of Chris Growe with Stifel.

I just had 2 questions for you, a bit of follow-on to earlier questions. So I just was curious, and you -- as you look at ESG initiatives, many of those will produce a positive return for the business. I would think that some of those could be negative as well. There's maybe some things you have to do, just as table stakes, I would think, and particularly like on the environmental side, to really progress towards your kind of longer-term initiatives. So just curious how you handle that. How you would handle things that maybe, cost-wise, you don't have the return, that maybe you require -- you would like to require from those initiatives. And then I had a second question, which is just, how you incorporate -- or if you incorporate ESG considerations in your M&A diligence. And I can leave it there.

Kofi, you want to field both of those?

Sure. Let me -- first, thanks for the question, Chris. So as you think about sort of the investment profile of all the ESG initiatives, we do assess the ROI of these investments. And to your point, some of them are -- do have some net costs that are part of the cost of doing business and part of our go-to-market model, and it's our job to ensure that we can cover those, if not directly, but somewhere else within the business model. But the other point that I think is really important here is that some of these sustainability initiatives do drive positive returns. For example, as you think about some of our initiatives that reduce things like packaging, for example, over the last 10 years, we saved almost $400 million through some of these proactive sustainability initiatives: Energy savings, packaging reductions, transportation efficiency, all contributing to that $400 million as we've delivered on these commitments. So I think the framework is there. I think the industry broadly will be helped by some common standards. So we are partnering to influence common standards so that there's full benchmark-ability and accountability across the industry. And then as we think about M&A, I think the critical component there is visibility to both the cost and potential returns. And those are the things that we would assess as part of our normal due diligence as we align with whatever public statements and commitments have been made; and down to the contractual level, what commitments, through their supply chain, may have an impact on value considerations.

All right. Thank you, Kofi. And I've been told it's time for us to wrap up. So to wrap it up, I guess, I want to thank all of you for joining us for our first-ever ESG event today. As you heard in the prepared remarks and the Q&A, General Mills is building on a long track record of ESG leadership. In fact, for more than 50 years, we've been reporting on corporate responsibility. And General Mills being the first company in any sector, to have a greenhouse gas reduction goal aligned to the Science Based Target initiative. But most importantly, we have a track record of doing what we say we're going to do. And so being a Force for Good is a central pillar to our Accelerate strategy, and we strongly believe that doing good is good for business. This is how we'll drive top shareholder returns over the long term and have a resilient business, making food the world loves for another 150 years. So thank you for your interest in General Mills. This concludes our event for today. Thanks.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.