2024/2025 Truth in Recycling Claims Shareholder Resolution with Mondelez
GOAL: To protect shareholder returns, this resolution seeks to prevent the company from squandering millions of dollars of company funds on wasteful ESG programs that deceive consumers, create legal risks, and do nothing to help the environment.
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KEY ISSUE: Mondelez is estimated to be wasting millions of dollars of corporate funds to purchase mass balance certificates which do not provide environmental benefit, are not recognized as recycled content by the USEPA, and have been described by the California Department of Justices as “a false and misleading marketing scheme.”
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LEGAL RISK: The type of lawsuit that Mondelez risks in promoting mass balance certificates is similar to the $10 million class action lawsuit settled by Mondelez in February 2025 over deceptively labeled Wheat Thins ingredients.
​RESOLUTION: In the best interest of the company, shareholders request the board of directors issue a report by December 2025 including the factual basis for legitimacy of all recycled content claims made on plastic packaging. The report should be prepared at reasonable cost, omitting confidential information.
SUPPORTING STATEMENT: Proponents recommend the report be led by independent legal and technical experts who have no financial conflicts caused by working for the plastics or plastics recycling industry and include an assessment of the reputational, financial, and operational risks associated with continuing to make deceptive claims on recycled content of plastic products.
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ABOUT THE FILING SHAREHOLDER:
Jan Dell is an individual shareholder who has held Mondelez stock for more than 10 years. After a 35-year corporate chemical engineering career, Jan Dell left industry to work to stop plastic pollution and waste. As profiled in the 2024 Netflix Buy Now! documentary and in the New York Times in 2023, Jan Dell has been working for seven years to bring truth to recyclability labels and claims because truth is essential to making progress on reducing plastic pollution and waste. She founded The Last Beach Cleanup, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, in 2019 and collaborates with stakeholders around the world.
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As a long-term shareholder concerned about the Company’s brand reputation and legal risks from false labels and claims, Jan Dell invites other shareholders to vote yes on this resolution.
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