Some of the Animal Agriculture Alliance’s most requested resources are our group profiles, which are one-page overviews of activist organizations working against animal agriculture and meat consumption in one way or another. Creating and updating these profiles could be a full-time job in and of itself, as we have more than 200 groups on our radar and get questions about new ones at least weekly.

Recently, I was contacted by a company who had been approached by a new group called The Accountability Board. The group was so new that I came up empty handed in my first Google search, though I eventually found their website which states that the group’s purpose is to “track companies’ environmental, social and governance performance, actively engaging to increase transparency and progress.” The website also includes logos of nearly 100 primarily restaurant, food retail and foodservice companies that are within TAB’s portfolio.

What the website doesn’t include is any mention of animal welfare; the closest it comes is stating that “how we produce and consume food intersects with so many ESG issues – significantly impacting, for example, our environment, global animal populations, and human health.” However, here is what earned TAB a spot on our monitoring list: Its CEO is Josh Balk, who previously worked as vice president of farm animal protection at the Humane Society of the United States. Before that, Balk worked at Animal Outlook (formerly Compassion Over Killing).

At HSUS, Balk led pressure campaigns pushing for food brands to change their sourcing policies, supposedly to improve animal welfare (though we’d contend the true objective was reducing efficiency of production and raising the cost of animal protein). It appears that fellow longtime HSUS employee Matt Prescott is also involved with TAB.

Given this leadership, TAB seems poised to join the likes of the UK’s Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return Initiative in positioning animal agriculture as a major risk to investors using messaging about animal welfare, antibiotic use and the supposed “pandemic potential” of large-scale farms. Activist groups have taken to targeting investors with campaigns in recent years as another way to mount pressure on brands to acquiesce to their demands; currently, the biggest push is for companies to adopt the “Better Chicken Commitment” or to meet deadlines for previous commitments made on sow housing and/or laying hen housing.

Publicly-traded companies should take note of this new organization and prepare for additional investor interest in how animals are raised and processed for food.

New activist group has eyes on investors

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