The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)

Company Website 2020 Financial Report Stock Analysis

2.05

Billion Dollars

in net sales in 2020

69^%

of HAIN's sales in 2020 came from food products, including plant-based food

Countries

HAIN products are sold in 75 countries

View Our Analysis

The Path to Drawdown: Plant-based Diet

The meat-centric Western diet is responsible for about one-fifth of global emissions. Taken altogether, land clearing, fertilizer use, and methane from cattle take an enormous toll on the environment and the climate.

Transitioning to a diet that’s rich in plants is a demand-side solution that reduces emissions and tends to be healthier. If the world adopted a vegan diet, business-as-usual emissions could be reduced by up to 70%, and a vegetarian diet could reduce emissions by 63%. Added to that, adopting a plant-based diet could help save $1 trillion in annual health-care costs and lost productivity.

Global dietary preferences based on meat, fish and dairy products are deeply embedded in Western cultures. Lower-income countries might also want to adopt them as they develop. Bringing about dietary change requires plant-based options that are widely available, visible, and enticing, including high-quality meat substitutes.

Project Drawdown estimates that, if 75% of the global population switches to a plant-rich diet by 2050, this dietary change can reduce GHG emissions by up to 91.72 gigatons: 68.32 gigatons from diverted agricultural production, 23.16 gigatons from avoided land conversion, and 0.24 gigatons from sequestration from ecosystem protection.

About

The Hain Celestial Group (stock ticker: HAIN) provides food and personal care products ranging from herbal teas, meat alternative products, snacks, soaps, lotions, hair care, and bodywash. Headquartered in Lake Success, New York, they offer their products through their subsidiaries in North America, Europe, and the UK.

HAIN’s Role in Drawdown

Hain Celestial offers a wide range of food and personal care products. Among them, their plant-based food products (p. 6) include plant-based beverages, frozen desserts made from soy, rice, oat, almond and coconut, and refrigerated and frozen plant-based meat alternatives.

Altogether, their grocery products accounted for ~69% of their net sales in 2020. But it’s not clear precisely how much of their sales consists of plant-based products and meat alternatives.

HAIN: What We Like

Hain Celestial is explicitly concerned with climate change. They highlight the ways in which their sourcing, manufacturing processes, and packaging help avoid emissions:

<::marker> They source deforestation-free materials. 92% of the palm oil they used in their food products in 2015 was certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
<::marker> Their portfolio of plant-based food products offer alternatives to livestock products
<::marker> Hain Celestial makes every effort to reduce packaging materials and use recyclable materials for packaging to reduce landfill waste

What We Want to See Improve

Revive Commitment to Sustainability Disclosure

Hain Celestial seemed to have lost steam in their sustainability disclosures over the recent years. In 2015, they put together a slide deck showing the lifecycle of GHG emissions and water use. In 2016, they made available their climate change policy in which they promised to disclose emissions metrics and to set science-based emissions reduction targets in the near future. It appears that they never followed up on these promises. And their last sustainability report was issued in 2018. We want to urge Hain Celestial’s executives to get back on the right track by starting their sustainability reporting and fulfill those commitments they made to their investors years ago.

Enforce Suppliers to Reduce Emissions

Hain Celestial makes their supplier code of conduct publicly available, and we applaud them for including the sentence “Suppliers are encouraged to go above and beyond the legal requirements and implement plans focused on reducing their use of natural resources.” Since suppliers are invited to go above legal requirements, we’d like to see Hain Celestial also calling on them to cut their GHG emissions from their operations. This would then improve Hain’s own scope 3 emissions.

Switch to Renewable Energy

Hain Celestial owns or leases a number of large facilities (p. 25) throughout the US, Canada, the UK and Europe. While they don’t report their carbon footprint, powering these facilities must amount to a substantial amount of emissions. We press them to transition to renewable sources of energy in the very near future.

Related Plant-Based Diet Stocks in the Climate Index

View All Climate Index Stocks →

Allocated	Company	Description
0.49%	Oatly Group AB (OTLY)	Oatley makes alternatives to dairy products from oats like milk, frozen desserts, and yogurt. Plant-based food can greatly cut emissions from agriculture
0.40%	Beyond Meat (BYND)	Beyond Meat makes burgers, sausages, beef, and meatballs from plant-based sources. Plant-based diet can massively cut emissions from agriculture
0.28%	The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)	HAIN sells meat alternative and plant-based food made from soy, rice, oats, almonds and coconut. Plant-based food is a key Drawdown solution
0.05%	SunOpta Inc. (STKL)	SunOpta makes plant-based and fruit-based food and beverage products. Plant-based diet can cut emissions from agriculture
0.02%	Burcon NutraScience Corp. (BRCN)	BRCN makes plant proteins and ingredients that go into food and beverage products. Plant-based food can massively cut emissions from agriculture
0.02%	Laird Superfood, Inc. (LSF)	Laird Superfood makes plant-based and functional foods for optimal well-being and high-performance. Plant-based diet is a key Drawdown solution
0.02%	MeaTech 3D Ltd. (MITC)	MeaTech makes lab-grown meat that’s 3D printed using stem cells. Their process doesn’t harm animals. Meat-free diet can massively cut agriculture emissions

The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (HAIN)

The Path to Drawdown: Plant-based Diet

About

HAIN’s Role in Drawdown

What We Want to See Improve

Related Plant-Based Diet Stocks in the Climate Index

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