As You Sow, a nonprofit that pushes for corporate accountability through shareholder action, is cautiously optimistic. “You can add new people to the board, but if the company stays on business as usual, then we haven’t solved anything,” says CEO Andrew Behar. Read More →
Read MoreDanielle Fugere is the president of the group As You Sow, which focuses on shareholder activism. She said it's a market reality that the world is taking climate change seriously. She said she thinks businesses should join the movement, instead of putting up a fight. "Because as climate change occurs, it impacts every company globally," said Fugere. "It makes it much more difficult to maintain business." Read More →
Read More“We are in the midst of a major transformation,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a nonprofit focused on shareholder advocacy. While these votes are typically non-binding, boards could face a no-confidence vote from governance groups if they ignore them. “Investors who have traditionally abdicated their power have begun to use their power,” Behar said. Read More →
Read More“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“Shareholders have no patience for companies that are insulating executives from the effects of COVID,” said Rosanna Landis-Weaver, who authors an annual report urging opposition to CEO pay packages for As You Sow, in an interview. Read More →
Read MoreThe newly-passed proposal is one such step. Plastic pellets are the raw components of almost all plastic products, As You Sow explained in its release. These petrochemical building blocks are estimated to be the second-largest source of microplastics in the ocean by weight. It is believed that about 10 trillion of them are spilled into the environment every year. Read More →
Read More"Given the growing consensus on the material risks related to the climate crisis, investors seek assurance that company lobbying activities support, and do not block, policy solutions designed to help markets decarbonize," Lila Holzman, an energy expert at the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, said in an email. "It is no surprise that shareholder resolutions on this topic are seeing record high votes this year, and we absolutely expect this trend to continue." Read More →
Read MoreAlready this AGM season, a majority of American Express investors voted in support of a shareholder resolution filed by NGO As You Sow, which asks the company to report on how its internal workplace practices align with its stated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Read More →
Read More“They never make those statements to the upside. When external events lead to windfalls or high pay, you don’t see companies adjusting for that,” said Rosanna Landis-Weaver, a corporate governance and compensation expert with As You Sow, a leading shareholder advocacy nonprofit. “They generally only ever make adjustments in one direction.” Read More →
Read MoreIn response to Walmart's commitment, As You Sow withdrew its shareholder proposal filed with the company and nine other consumer goods retailers in January 2021, it said in a statement. Read More →
Read MoreAccording to As You Sow, a nonprofit shareholder advocacy group that helped file the proposal, DuPont’s environmental reports will “disclose trends in the amount of plastic in various forms released to the environment by the company annually and concisely assess the effectiveness of the company’s policies and actions to reduce the volume of the company’s plastic materials contaminating the environment.” Read More →
Read More“These are the last people that need to have their pay accommodated,” said Rosanna Landis Weaver, a program manager at As You Sow, a non-profit focused on shareholder advocacy. “If it’s heads I win, tails I win almost as much -- that’s not pay-for-performance. It’s just ridiculous.” Read More →
Read MoreThe GE result is the latest ESG-related success for As You Sow,. Shareholders in DuPont de Nemours recently voted for a shareholder proposal brought by the group asking DuPont to disclose its role in plastic pollution. Read More →
Read MoreWhistle Stop Capital CEO Meredith Benton, a consultant to shareholder group As You Sow, which filed the Berkshire Hathaway diversity proposal, said Berkshire Hathaway stood out in demonstrating little initiative on the ESG front and Buffett showed a "lack of leadership." Read More →
Read MoreAs You Sow, an advocacy group that filed the resolution, said the vote won the backing of stockholders representing some 81% of the company's shares. That is a record amount of support for an environmental shareholder proposal opposed by the top brass at a publicly traded corporation, according to the Sustainable Investments Institute. Read More →
Read More“This vote confirms a tidal wave of support by investors to confront a deadly contributor to the global plastic pollution crisis,” said Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president at nonprofit shareholder advocate As You Sow, which filed the proposal. Read More →
Read MoreThe conglomerate run by famed investor Warren Buffett is opposing a shareholder proposal calling on its board to publish an annual report detailing its diversity and inclusion efforts. Proposed by the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow on behalf of Handlery Hotels, it contends that more diverse workplaces are more profitable, more likely to outperform against competitors and have higher stock returns. Read More →
Read MoreIt may not be readily apparent how a fund incorporates ESG factors into its strategy. Take the BlackRock U.S. Carbon Transition Readiness ETF, which attracted $1.25 billion of investor dollars when it launched in mid April. “The people who invested in that fund thought they were addressing climate risk,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder advocacy nonprofit As You Sow. “Instead they got business as usual,” he says, including energy and fossil fuel giants. Read More →
Read More“It was largely cosmetic,” says Rosanna Landis Weaver, program manager of the CEO pay program at shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. “Most of these companies issued huge press releases announcing they were doing something good by getting rid of their CEO salaries. They didn’t make big announcements when those salaries returned.” Read More →
Read MoreAs You Sow, a nonprofit that promotes corporate social responsibility, also created the Invest Your Values search tools, which investors can use to learn more about their investments. Investors can search the name or symbol of mutual funds or ETFs in one of six search tools, including Deforestation Free Funds and Fossil Free Funds, and will be provided with a "report card" on the fund related to the issue. Read More →
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