Posts in Shareholder Advocacy
SEC panel urged to back shareholder rights, proposal process

Shareholder Rights Group — whose members include nonprofits As You Sow, Ceres and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, as well as the nation’s largest federation of unions — sent the letter Thursday, after the IAC explored proxy proposals and the implications of ExxonMobil’s lawsuit against Arjuna Capital at a meeting last month.  Read More

Read More
The Rundown: Everything you need to know about conservative activist shareholder proposals

“Last year As You Sow had 210 engagements and 99 companies agreed to take action, a great many of them on DEI disclosure,” he said, without naming the companies it had targeted. “We escalated 111 by filing shareholder resolutions; 56 agreed to terms and we withdrew. The remainder went to a vote which then led to more engagements and action by the vast majority companies.” Read More →

Read More
CEO of As You Sow Makes Case For Responsible Investing After Facing Meritless Political Attacks From House Judiciary Committee

Last week, Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, appeared in front of the House Judiciary Committee, where he defended responsible investing after the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the pro-corporate responsibility group. After the hearing, Behar appeared on Democracy Now where he made the case for responsible investing and why the committee members were wrong. Read More →

Read More
Andrew Behar on sustainable shareholder advocacy

In this episode we speak with Andrew Behar, the CEO of As You Sow, the United States’ leading non-profit practitioner of shareholder advocacy and engagement. We talk about how As You Sow engages with boards and management teams on issues like climate change; toxins in the food system; ocean plastics; diversity, equity, and inclusion; racial justice; and wage equity.  Read More →

Read More
Business talks ESG with Andrew Behar: What is a proxy season and how can NGOs use shareholder power?

What is shareholder engagement, and how can it actually influence investments? How does shareholder power differ between Europe and America in terms of shareholder proposals? What are the regulatory variations that contribute to this difference? Listen to the conversation between: Andrew Behar, CEO and founder of As You Sow and Hege Marie Norheim, EVP Corporate Public Affairs and Sustainability, FREYR  Read More →

Read More
The Purposeful 50 2023

Andrew Behar is CEO of As You Sow, the nation’s leading non-profit practitioner of shareholder advocacy and engagement. With a 30-year track record of success,  As You Sow advances values-aligned investing and uses shareholder power to compel companies to reduce material risk on issues including climate change; toxins in the food system; ocean plastics; diversity, equity, and inclusion; racial justice; and wage equity. Read More →

Read More
Critical Climate and Diversity Stakeholder Resolutions for 2023 With Andy Behar

This week, Andy Behar, the CEO of As You Sow, joins Kim Griego-Kiel to talk about the nonprofit organization’s role in shaking up the business world with its innovative environmental and social justice approach. Listen in as Andy details the ins and outs of creating a more sustainable and equitable future for this and the years to come. Read More →

Read More
Proxy season 2022: The story behind falling support for ESG proposals

According to a report from Proxy Impact, the Sustainable Investments Institute and As You Sow, the six months to the end of June saw a record-breaking 282 votes and 34 majority votes (equal to the same period last year) backing ESG shareholder proposals seeking disclosure and action from US companies. This backs the widespread narrative of recent years that ESG-linked investing and pressure on companies to meet expectations on issues such as climate change and diversity continue unabated. Read More →

Read More
Holding Management to Account

Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, joins the podcast to discuss the power of using shareholder advocacy to drive change at large corporations. Andrew walks us through “a day in the life,” specifically May 25, 2022, when his team presented resolutions at five corporate annual meetings on issues ranging from climate change to racial justice; Andrew talks about the SEC’s new draft rule that addresses the ESG naming problem within mutual funds; and the paradox of employees unknowingly investing in companies that are destroying the Amazon through company retirement plans. Read More →

Read More
As You Sow Uses KPIs And Data To Help Shareholders Advocate For Long-Term Corporate Change

Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, says companies that adopt a stakeholder capitalism framework to benefit more than just shareholders will create lasting value for all stakeholders and strengthen the bottom line. “If it’s good for the employees; good for the customers; good for the community; and good for the supply chain; it’s generally good for the business, which means it’s good for shareholders,” he told me during a recent conversation as part of my research on purpose-driven business. Read More →

Read More
An Open letter to Larry Fink: How Your CEO Letter Requires a Few Tweaks

Andrew Behar once again pens a letter to BlackRock’s CEO.

I particularly appreciate the creation of the “Center for Stakeholder Capitalism” as it answers the request As You Sow made in two shareholder resolutions for an implementation plan of the Business Roundtable pledge. This is exactly what we were looking for. You have my gratitude and personal offer to assist in any way to, “bring together leading CEOs, investors, policy experts, and academics to share their experience and deliver their insights”.

Read More →

Read More
US Shareholders Better Able to Push Social, Environmental Scrutiny

Shareholder advocacy non-profit As You Sow also welcomed the change, with the organisation’s President, Danielle Fugere, calling it a “timely and necessary” move which would help shareholders play a “critical role in ensuring companies are addressing issues that create risk and opportunity and can affect shareholder value”. Read More →

Read More
The SEC, and ESG advocates, want to know how well companies are treating their workers

In recent years, both the World Economic Forum and Business Roundtable, pre-Covid, embraced stakeholder capitalism over shareholder capitalism to the exclusion of every other interest. Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, which has taken on many companies over the years in proxy battles focused on ESG issues, says the tide it not turning back to Milton Friedman’s view of the world. Read More →

Read More
A Glimpse of a Future With True Shareholder Democracy

“The big fund companies have a massive aggregation of power that comes from the investments of their shareholders,” said Andrew Behar, chief executive of As You Sow. “At the very least, the fund companies shouldn’t be allowed to vote if they have conflicts of interest.” Read More →

Read More