Our Theory Of Change

Corporations are responsible for many – even most – of the seemingly intractable social and environmental problems we face today. We believe corporations can and must be part of the solutions, and we know shareholders can be a powerful force for creating positive, lasting change in corporate behavior.

In 2023, As You Sow conducted 210 engagements. Over 70% of those companies took positive action.

For over 30 years, As You Sow has been convincing corporations to take positive action on a broad range of issues, through direct engagement with senior management. Our shareholder resolutions, original research and reports, coalition-building, and direct discussion puts pressure on management to meaningfully improve corporate policies and practices and creates real-world impact. Our vision is a safe, just, and sustainable world in which protecting the environment and human rights is central to corporate decisionmaking.

Here are just a few examples of that impact:

• Amazon reduced its plastics use by 12% last year

• Duke Energy, America’s largest utility, set a target to achieve netzero carbon emissions by 2050

• McDonald’s, Dunkin’, and YUM! eliminated 3+ billion Styrofoam cups a year

• General Mills has adopted chemical pesticide reduction in key agricultural supply chains

• McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, and KFC stopped buying chickens raised with medically important antibiotics, affecting 33,000 restaurants and the entire U.S. poultry industry

We are entering a new generation of corporate responsibility, where shareholders are the voice of reason making long-term, sustainable growth the priority. As shareholders, we have strength in numbers, the legal right, and the moral obligation to raise our voices for good.