“Change is coming,” predicts Rosanna Landis Weaver, program manager of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. “There’s a lot of populist outrage over this, and this level of inequality is destabilizing.” Read More →
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Danielle Fugere, President of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, which filed the proposal on carbon emissions disclosure, told DeSmog: “What we are asking them to do is measure, disclose, and set a target to become Paris aligned.” Read More →
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A majority of Phillips 66 investors voted for a shareholder proposal that asked the Houston refiner to produce information about the public health risks of expanding petrochemical operations along the U.S. Gulf Coast… The proposal, which was filed by the climate activist shareholder group, As You Sow, argued that building chemical facilities in areas more prone to climate risks such as frequent storms, flooding and sea level rise, could pose financial, health, environmental and reputation risks to the Houston refining and pipeline company. Read More →
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Performance goals set early this year by the boards of calendar-year companies may be largely irrelevant since the Covid-19 pandemic set the stock market spiraling and companies scrambling. Read More →
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Compensation linked to stock is meant to align the interests of executives with that of shareholders and companies note that stock and option awards are “at risk.” Some of them may be since the direction of the stock price determines the payout. But they are granted with an estimated value – what shows up in the proxy pay table. For much of the last decade, due to an extended bull market, that estimate has ended up being too low compared with where the stock is trading when the grants are ultimately cashed in, says Rosanna Landis-Weaver, program manager at shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. Read More →
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Continuing a recent trend that began in the 2019 proxy season, Berkeley, California-based proponent As You Sow has once again come to an oil and gas company operating on the Gulf Coast to request that it report on the public health risks of expanding petrochemical operations in the environmentally risky region.
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Phillip Goldstein, a co-founder of Bulldog Investors LLC, wrote the SEC in March to urge the agency to stop a potential move by companies to opt out of the rule by only allowing votes on shareholder proposals that have been approved by a company board… Other stakeholders such as Andrew Behar, the chief executive officer of the non-profit organization As You Sow, says worries about excessive shareholder proposals are overblown. Read More →
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One proposal asks the company to report on how expanding the operations of its chemical division, CPChem, may affect public health in areas prone to climate-change-related natural disasters… The organization that brought the proposal to the board, As You Sow, is a nonprofit group that uses shareholder advocacy to push for socially responsible business practices in several industries. Read More →
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Corporate boards, on the other hand, don’t tend to share the same appreciation. Companies aren’t as comfortable having explosive concerns aired in “the public eye…where they cannot necessarily control what is said about them,” says Welsh, whose organization produces the Proxy Preview with the nonprofit shareholder activist organization As You Sow and Proxy Impact, a shareholder advocacy and proxy voting service. Read More →
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“This year can be an inflection point,” says As You Sow’s Andrew Behar. “The 2020 proxy season will test if investors and companies will help define a new economic paradigm or if these endorsements are just empty words.” Read More →
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But people increasingly want to know that the conglomeration of corporations that they part-own is clean. That’s where As You Sow’s “Invest Your Values” online tool comes into play. The tool, the winner in the impact investing category of Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas Awards, gives users a chance to view what’s in the funds they’re paying into and—if they don’t like what they find—to pick a mutual fund more aligned with their politics “Its essence is to help everyday investors to align their investing with their values,” says Andrew Behar, As You Sow’s CEO. Read More →
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Investment into new natural gas infrastructures like pipelines and power plants is "incompatible" with long-term shareholder value, and thus it is in the best interest of the investor community to push utilities away from natural gas, according to a new report from corporate social responsibility group As You Sow and environmental consulting firm Energy Innovation. Read More →
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UPDATE: April 15, 2020: As You Sow recently agreed to withdraw a shareholder proposal following an agreement by Republic Services to report new recycling information. Read More →
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As You Sow, a group that has worked with APS on plans to reduce the company’s reliance on fossil-fuel based energy, in an email to POWER said its supports APS’s action plan. “We commend APS for this important step toward addressing its climate impact and positioning itself to thrive in the coming clean energy economy,” said Lila Holzman, energy program manager of As You Sow. Read More →
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The pressure on Barclays is also an indication of what will be coming the way of US banks in years to come, according to US investor As You Sow. “We are pleased to see Barclays show leadership at this particularly critical time of economic uncertainty,” said Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow. “This announcement from a European bank continues to highlight the gap of inaction by US banks.” Read More →
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Republic Services Inc., Phoenix, has committed to publishing a report on how the company can improve efforts to increase plastics recovery and recycling to address environmental problems caused by plastic pollution, according to a news release from Berkeley, California-based nonprofit As You Sow. Read More →
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Danielle Fugere, president and chief counsel of coalition member group As You Sow, said in a separate statement about the decision that Barclays' decision "is critically important to helping ensure the world meets its climate goal," and that it also "highlights the gap of inaction by U.S. banks, who will continue to see pressure from shareholder resolutions, including an upcoming one with J.P. Morgan Chase." Read More →
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As You Sow CEO Andrew Behar believes that a discussion he had with one of the board members of Monster Beverage Corp. during a coffee break at the company's 2018 annual general meeting was the catalyst behind Monster's decision several months later to work with As You Sow to study and publish a slavery and human trafficking report on its sugarcane supply chain and start on the path to addressing those issues. The related resolution had received only 20% support at the 2018 meeting. Read More →
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“If companies do not intend to align with the global Paris goal, they should be clear with shareholders,” As You Sow President Danielle Fugere said in a statement. “Only through clear and comparable reporting can shareholders benchmark company actions and make sound investment decisions.” Read More →
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