Chatham House report
Published 8 July 2020
Updated 17 December 2020
ISBN: 978 1 78413 404 4
Malnutrition acts as a brake on the development of individuals, communities and economies around the world. This report is the first of its kind to reveal the hidden costs of malnutrition for business, and the extent to which these costs are recognized and addressed by multinational companies (MNCs).
In seeking to elicit insights and opinion from corporate representatives for this report, we conducted semi-structured interviews as a means of guiding the discussion to cover certain topics while allowing space to capture new perspectives from participants and to respond to changing levels of awareness and understanding over the course of each interview.
A total of 130 companies were invited to participate in an interview. The majority of companies invited were large MNCs, all of which are active in low-, lower-middle- and/or upper-middle-income countries. Where possible, to maximize the chances of response, invitations were sent to individuals with whom Chatham House already had direct contact within the companies. Each contact was asked to pass the invitation on to someone within the company with oversight either of human resources in low- and middle-income countries or of sustainability-related activity in such countries. For companies with which Chatham House had no existing contact, invitations were sent either to contacts of The Power of Nutrition, to individuals in relevant roles (identified using company websites or LinkedIn) or, in a small number of cases, to generic contact email addresses.
Of the 130 companies, 77 (59 per cent) responded either positively or negatively. Of these, 16 agreed to participate in an interview (12 per cent of the total approached; 21 per cent of the total that responded), while 22 provided a reason for their non-participation (29 per cent of those that responded). These reasons are outlined in Table 8 below (wording has been edited slightly to protect the anonymity of companies where necessary).
All 16 companies are MNCs with operations in low- and middle-income countries. Nine of the 16 companies are headquartered in Europe, four in Asia, and three in the United States.
The sectoral spread of the 16 companies is as follows:
|
Theme |
Reasons provided |
|---|---|
|
Staff unlikely to be malnourished |
‘Even though we are present in areas which may fall under the “low- to lower-middle-income” category, we believe undernutrition does not impact our business operations here.’ ‘We have offices in a number of developing countries, but these are small offices staffed by well-paid professionals. We do not employ large numbers of people in these markets, though we are invested in companies that do.’ ‘We get free food in the company, but I don’t think it is because there is any concern that employees would otherwise be malnourished.’ |
|
Not enough time to take part |
‘We don’t have enough time.’ ‘Unfortunately, the timing right now is not the best.’ ‘We don’t have enough bandwidth.’ ‘We believe this is an important area, but we are still working on our supply chain strategy and we aren’t at a point where we can meaningfully participate in this kind of conversation.’ ‘I’m afraid your email lands at a time when we’re preoccupied with our full-year results.’ |
|
Unable to identify the right person |
‘I have spent the last few days trying to get senior colleagues interested in this but have failed miserably.’ ‘I haven’t quite found the right contact.’ ‘I’ve passed it on to our HR department for advice.’ ‘I have passed it on to HR colleagues and am afraid they will not be able to participate.’ ‘I have passed on your information to our local HR head.’ |
|
Outside of the remit or focus area of the company |
‘It’s definitely not an area that the company is exploring, nor do I feel we would in the future.’ ‘I’m afraid the scope of this research is too far away from our current priorities.’ ‘It is not core to our business and expertise.’ ‘We don’t consider this as an important issue for the company.’ ‘This is outside the remit of our citizenship endeavours and capacity of our business teams which are focused on other areas.’ ‘The area of undernutrition is not a scope of our work.’ ‘Nutrition is not one of our focus areas for our work in social impact and is therefore not an issue we have a perspective on.’ |
|
Staff predominantly located in high-income countries |
‘We are a global company, but with virtually all our staff based in high-income countries.’ ‘As we are mainly UK-based, this research probably would not apply to us.’ |
Participants were encouraged to speak about the issues of particular interest to them, and in which they had a degree of expertise, as well as being prompted to consider issues that were less familiar to them prior to the interview.
The result is a set of interview responses which are non-equivalent; no two interviews followed precisely the same flow, and the omission of a particular issue or initiative from one interview can be interpreted neither as confirmation that the issue has not been considered by the participant or his/her company nor as an indication that an initiative is not in place. These responses were analysed thematically; we do not attempt to draw any quantitative results from them nor to assert that the views expressed by participants are representative of the organizations they represent or of the wider sector.
The interviews were not recorded (this was at the request of many participants), but instead were transcribed in real time by two transcribers. To the extent possible, these transcriptions were semi-verbatim (capturing the exact wording of the interviewee but not including fillers or hesitations such as ‘uhhh’ or ‘let me think about that for a moment’). Some responses quoted in this report have been very lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
The interview responses were then coded by one researcher before being grouped by theme and analysed. Examples of codes and themes used are included below (Table 9). Codes and themes were identified by hand and were verified by a colleague who had not been involved in the interviews.
|
Theme |
Example codes |
|---|---|
|
Prevalence/significance of undernutrition |
Undernutrition Underweight Anaemia Micronutrient deficiency |
|
Prevalence/significance of overweight/obesity |
Overweight Obesity High BMI Diet-related non-communicable diseases |
|
Risk factors for malnutrition |
Age Income Lifestyle Geographical region |
|
Impact of malnutrition |
Fitness for duty Absenteeism Presenteeism Low productivity Skills level Educational attainment |
|
Motivations for action on nutrition |
Responsible business SDGs Return on investment Employee well-being Reputational risk Health strategy |
The questions underpinning the semi-structured interviews, and the background provided to interview participants, are included below:
Chatham House is undertaking research, supported by The Power of Nutrition and the wider Research Funders Network, to assess the impact of malnutrition in low- and middle-income countries on global business. The output from the research will be a short report, aimed at business and to be launched around the 2020 Nutrition for Growth Summit, that outlines the cost to business of malnutrition and explores particular sectors and regions for which the economic burden of malnutrition on the private sector is particularly great.
Working with Vivid Economics, we will be undertaking an economic analysis of the cost of malnutrition to business. These interviews will complement this quantitative research and are intended to give us an insight into how malnutrition affects businesses’ day-to-day operations, the extent to which the impact of malnutrition on workforce productivity and consumer demand is monitored, and what businesses believe is needed to better manage malnutrition along supply chains and across wider societies.
We are happy to anonymize the results of this interview or to list you as an individual or your business as a participant in the research – this is up to you.
For clarity, we are defining malnutrition as both undernutrition (stunting, wasting, micronutrient deficiencies) and overnutrition (overweight and obesity). When we talk about the impact of malnutrition on business, we are thinking about workforce productivity, workforce skills attainment and consumer demand. For example, we are interested in the extent to which malnutrition contributes to absenteeism and lost work hours, the way in which malnutrition limits the skills attainment of the workforce and affects productivity, and the degree to which malnutrition stifles economic growth and consumer demand for goods and services.
i) For example, we’re speaking to HR managers from other companies, and exploring the extent to which existing data or monitoring systems could be used to assess whether worker malnutrition is costing your company.
