Shareholder Activism

From the Sustainability Dictionary:

Shareholder Activism is the process of dialogue with company executives and filing shareholder resolutions generates investor pressure on corporate executives, garners media attention (which adds even more pressure on corporations to improve their behavior), and educates the public on often-ignored social, environmental, and labor issues. The process has served as a powerful tool to encourage corporate turnaround in social and environmental policies. Ultimately, this can lead to a more sustainable company.

Shareholder activism, also known as shareholder advocacy, first gained momentum during the 1970s when religious investors formed a coalition (the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility) to advocate for socially responsible changes in corporate policies.



Shareholder Resolutions Flourish at JP Morgan Meeting

As an advocate of shareholder activism, I seldom see more than one or two shareholder proposals on proxy statements. However, yesterday’s JP Morgan shareholder meeting contained 7 shareholder proposals and had me smiling like a kid in a candy store. Now this is what shareholder advocacy is supposed to look like. Considering the bank’s recent lost bet of $2 billion in derivative trading, this is an opportune time to perhaps take a brief look at what small and big shareholders were advocating for at one of the world’s largest banks:

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Can Shareholder Activism Spur Electric Utilities to Shift Away from Coal?

Some of the largest US electric utilities in the use are facing shareholder proxy votes calling on them to enact and report on coal risk mitigation plans. Behind the proxy resolutions is CSR/shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, which asserts that shareholders face significantly increased investment risk as a result of the utilities’ reticence to enact such plans and shift away from coal to other cleaner and renewable energy supply sources.

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Goldman Sachs Loses Battle with Largest Public Union in U.S.

Realizing the pressure of a recent shareholder resolution, Goldman Sachs was able to get the largest public employee and health care workers’ union in the country, AFSCME, to pull their proposal regarding Lloyd Blankfein’s role as both CEO and chairman of the board. In lieu of yanking the proposal, Goldman will change its board structure and appoint a “lead director” to its board.

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Humane Society Makes Strategic Stock Purchase in Major Fast Food Chain

In recent years, advocacy organizations like Greenpeace, PETA, and others have been able to leverage the stakeholder engagement trend and the power of social media to focus public attention on their key issues and put pressure on companies to take action. Recent news from The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) reveals that these organizations have added yet another influencing tactic [...]

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Oil Company Shareholders Vote Against Fracking in Record Numbers

Opponents of fracking have taken their cause to energy companies’ shareholders, and the results are impressive. Recent shareholder resolution votes on fracking resulted in huge percentages of “yes” votes.

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McDonald’s Stands Its Ground: Advertising To Children is OK

Corporate Accountability International (CAI) presented a proposal at McDonald’s Corp shareholder meeting yesterday that asked for a report on the links between fast food and childhood obesity. CAI worked with the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia on putting together the proposal. The proposal was defeated, as were proposals by The Humane Society of the U.S. and [...]

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Shareholders Pressure Coca-Cola to Scrutinize BPA

On April 27 over one-quarter of Coca-Cola shareholders voted for a resolution that requested the beverage giant to address consumers’ concerns over bisphenol A, or BPA.

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Evil Corporations: Shareholders Pull Strings for Sustainability

By Derrick Mains, Principal of Your3BL Advisors and Host of Your3BL Radio We all know that there is a rising tide of resistance against some large corporations. It could even be said that the word “evil” has become synonymous with big business. But have you ever wondered what makes these companies so evil? I mean, [...]

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Proxy Power: This Year’s Hottest Issues

By Andrew Behar Shareholder activism is alive and well. This year individual and institutional investors will use their power to influence corporate policy on key social and environmental issues by casting their annual proxy votes. These votes are an important way for shareholders to send a much-needed message to companies that they expect honest, responsible [...]

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Sustainability Shareholder Proposal Turned Down at Microsoft Meeting

On a typical cold and rainy morning in Seattle this week, Microsoft shareholders, board members and executives gathered for the annual shareholders meeting to discuss the trials of the previous year, along with prospects of the future. This is the shareholders’ only time to speak their minds directly to Bill Gates, and only one shareholder [...]

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Starbucks Deserves Credit for Progress on Recycling But there’s Room for Improvement

By Conrad MacKerron, Senior Program Director, As You Sow Ever seen a recycling bin at a Starbucks?  Where do you think 3 billion paper cups go every year?  That’s right – straight to the landfill or incinerator.  But we hope that’s about to change as Starbucks gears up to make good on a promise to [...]

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Investors Demand Oil Companies Improve Disaster Response Plans

The oil industry has been under heavy scrutiny over the past few months thanks to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.  Criticized for sharing an outdated emergency plan for a disaster in the Gulf, the industry has responded with a rapid response plan.  Some cynics respond with a yawn, and assume that in the long [...]

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CSR: How Investor Proxy Votes Win

Shareholder resolutions and proxy votes haven’t been that successful in the past, but recent initiatives by As You Sow on coal show they’re picking up speed.

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Exxon’s “Frack Attack” and What Shareholders May Do About It

By Michael Passoff, Senior Program Director at As You Sow ExxonMobil believes in public disclosure regarding its use of toxic chemicals. Either that, or it is funding lobbying groups to oppose regulations for disclosure. Former VP Dick Cheney was concerned about your health. Either that or he gave a big handout to his gas and [...]

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Exxon Shareholders Call for Risk Disclosure on Canadian Oil Sands

Given the current horrifying disaster in the Gulf, it is quickly becoming fashionable to highlight alternative means of extracting oil. As we all know and as President Obama once pointed out “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” The same holds true in the oil extraction business as various methods [...]

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Moxy Vote Makes Shareholder Activism Easy

If I had a dime for every proxy vote mailing I’ve tossed into the round file, I would be a rich woman. Figuring out how to vote is hard enough, and my vote is hardly worth much anyway. Moxy Vote solves both problems for me. This web-based startup enables shareholders to vote online on corporate [...]

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Investors Raise Coal Ash Disposal Issues with Coal Utilities

by Amy Galland of As You Sow As regulators debate emission caps and utilities install filters and scrubbers to reduce toxic particles from going into the atmosphere – we have to take a minute and remember that the coal problem isn’t solved.  These toxins go somewhere. They go into the 130 million tons of Coal [...]

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Starbucks Shareholders Vote Down Recycling, Company Resists Cooperation

Starbucks, a company not new to environmental criticism, was recently faced with a seemingly modest proposal by a Starbucks shareholder to consider a more aggressive strategy and set of goals for recycling the materials that are consumed within and leave their doors. The measure was voted down after the Board of Directors advised shareholders to [...]

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Shareholder Activists Hit Starbucks on Recycling

As I stood and watched the line of 12 in front of me at Starbucks the other day, I daydreamed about the load of cups Starbucks must go through every day.  A little googling turned up the fact that  it’s actually 3 billion paper cups and 1 billion plastic cups a year.  To put that [...]

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SEC Climate Change Guidelines Lead to New Shareholder Resolutions

By Dale Wannen If recent talk about climate change hasn’t already rattled every CEO’s corporate cage, then yesterday’s news regarding shareholder resolutions should do the trick.  It was announced during a phone-based news conference today that investors filed a record 95 climate change resolutions against companies ranging from coal mining to big box retailers.  That’s [...]

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Shareholder Activism, Yes You Can

By Dale Wannen, Harrington Investments Ever want to just yell, while reading about overpaid CEOs?  Ever wish that you could ask the board members at Monsanto if they eat genetically modified corn?  Ever want to just stare Larry Ellison in the eye and ask him how much his sailboat costs shareholders?  Well, you can. Shareholder [...]

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Chevron, Pension Funds, and Shareholder Activism (Part 2)

“The central question, then, is not whether we want Big Business, but what we want of it; and what organization of Big Business and of the society it serves is best equipped to [help us] realize our wishes and demands…”-Peter Drucker On Monday Shannon reported here on 3P how shareholder activism has forced companies like Target, Apple, [...]

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Shareholder Activism to the Rescue!

Shareholder activism is a primary reason why several large companies are eliminating harmful toxins from their plastic products. In a recent investigative series launched by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, reporters found that lax governmental regulation of Bisphenol-A and PVC plastic has led to their proliferation in a wide range on consumer products – including baby [...]

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The Impact of Shareholder Activism

The idea behind “shareholder activism” is that the sharehodlers of a company excercise their influence to effect policy changes at the corporate level that reflect environmenatal, social or any other issue. It’s really a very neat way of going about it because, as owners of the company, shareholders have every right to have their voice [...]

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