The oil lobby, the far right, and corporations unwilling to accept and adapt to changing times are attacking shareholder advocacy and sustainable investing. They’re seeking to stop, and even reverse, progress on climate change and social justice.

Here’s how we know you’re making a difference: There is a stunning amount of alarm and orchestrated pushback from the radical right this year, including attacks directly targeting As You Sow.

As You Sow began its Waste Program over 20 years ago, pushing companies on recyclability, recycled content, and waste. The massive proliferation of plastic packaging and single use plastics has far outstripped recycling’s ability to contain the waste and the problems the waste creates. We are transitioning to a circular economy perspective focused on minimizing extraction, designing for reuse and repair, and eliminating waste entirely.

Shareholder advocates have delivered significant corporate progress on climate, including recordbreaking shareholder votes, agreements from major corporations on Paris transition plans, and success in running dissident board slates

Shareholder votes are advisory. The point is to make it clear to management there’s an issue that needs attention and action.

Shareholders returned majority votes on five As You Sow resolutions this year, in an entirely unprecedented show of shareholder unity — historically, majority votes are vanishingly rare. Five in one year is unprecedented.

Exxon is the 5th largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, behind only China, Russia’s Gazprom, and the national oil companies of Saudi Arabia and Iran.