Earth Day 2021: How shareholder advocacy can make a difference Earth Day occurs on April 22, as it has since its founding in 1970. Some credit Earth Day’s establishment as the beginning of the modern environmental movement. As a child, I remember attending school assemblies commemorating Earth Day. Speakers stressed the era’s key environmental themes […]
My letter to Business Roundtable (BRT) on shareholder resolutions is reprinted below. There has been no response so far. If their pledge to stakeholders was really in earnest, maybe they will now be more open to negotiation on ESG issues than they were when we testified to the SEC at cross purposes. The BRT has […]
Lobbying disclosure is sought by shareholder resolutions filed at 50 companies by 66 institutional and individual investors. Corporate lobbying disclosure remains a top shareholder proposal topic for 2016. At least 66 investors have filed proposals at 50 companies asking for lobbying reports that include federal and state lobbying payments, payments to trade associations used for […]
The following on shareholder rights by Timothy Smith, Director of ESG Shareowner Engagement at Walden Asset Management, originally appeared in the Summer 2014 Edition of Walden’s Values Newsletter, which included the usual disclaimer at the bottom. I’ve added the links and have tacked on some additional reformatted comments from Timothy Smith regarding the role of individual investors in prompting reform. […]
In a speech to the 26th Annual Corporate Law Institute held at Tulane University Law School on Federal Preemption of State Corporate Governance, SEC commissioner Daniel Gallagher delivered a scathing attack on small investors and proposed radical steps to severely limit democracy in corporate governance. Gallagher opened his attack by stating, Activist investors and corporate gadflies have used […]
Two more reviews of the 2013 proxy season came out the other day. The quickest read is from Jackie Cook at CookESG (Proxy Season Roundup: Shareholder Resolutions) who analyzed 502 shareholder-sponsored resolutions voted between July 2012 and June 2013. Two-thirds are governance-related, averaging 41% support. One-third address social and environmental issues, with an average 21% level […]