"We are learning things from COVID that are going to be applied to all of business," said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a non-profit organization promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy and coalitions. He predicts a shift toward more fact-based business decisions, whether they're addressing greenhouse gas emissions or income inequality. Read More →
Read MoreIn a Nutshell: Fossil Free Funds is one of six mutual fund search tools offered by 501(c)3 nonprofit As You Sow. Investors can research thousands of mutual funds, fund managers, fund families, and other options to see where the companies embedded in their mutual funds stand on social, environmental, and governance issues. Read More →
Read MoreShareholders are giving most companies an overwhelming thumbs up. But the scrutiny has helped curb some of the most egregious practices in recent years, such as companies paying the equivalent of CEOs’ income taxes, said Rosanna Landis Weaver, program manager of executive compensation at As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy group. Read More →
Read MoreLate last year, shareholder activist group As You Sow filed a resolution asking Southern to report on the risks of its natural gas assets becoming stranded as the world moves away from fossil fuels to address climate change. Read More →
Read MoreAccording to preliminary results, 46% of investors voted to support a shareholder resolution at Chevron and 25% voted to support a similar one at Exxon. Filed by shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, the resolutions call for Exxon and Chevron to report on the public health risks of expanding their petrochemical operations in areas increasingly prone to climate change-induced storms, flooding, and sea level rise. The same proposal received a majority 54.7% vote at Phillips 66 earlier this month. Read More →
Read MoreAs You Sow, an environmental and corporate social responsibility advocacy group, wanted the lender to issue a report “outlining if and how it intends to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its lending activities in alignment” with global temperature goals established by the Paris Agreement. The Paris pact has called for maintaining global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius. Read More →
Read MoreIn his presentation of the proposal, Andrew Behar, CEO of the non-profit organization As You Sow, which promotes investor action on sustainable practices at corporations, said: “We agree with the World Economic Forum, the Business Roundtable and BlackRock on the path forward. This requires an alignment of words and actions. Yet historically, BlackRock has voted for nearly every egregious CEO pay package and against nearly every climate resolution. This cognitive dissonance is troubling.” Read More →
Read MoreBlackRock Inc. shocked Wall Street in January when CEO Larry Fink announced that the wealth mammoth was overhauling its investment strategy and putting sustainability at its core. Read More →
Read MoreCorporations holding annual general meetings this month are well familiar with two particularly attentive shareholders: Andrew Behar and Danielle Fugere of As You Sow. Along with groups like CERES and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, the Berkeley, Calif., nonprofit has taken the lead in engaging corporations on issues from carbon footprints to workforce treatment. Read More →
Read MoreImpactAlpha, May 21 – Massive flooding in Midland, Michigan on Wednesday threatened to release chemicals from a Dow chemical complex, where products ranging from Saran Wrap to Agent Orange have been produced over years, and an adjacent Superfund site. It’s the kind of nightmare scenario that imperils public health as well as corporate value, and one that investor groups have been sounding the alarm on as global warming increases the frequency of severe weather events… “This should be a warning sign,” says Lila Holzman of As You Sow. Read More →
Read MoreIn a clear signal of support for reforming the lending practices of the world's largest private bank to ensure a habitable future planet, 49.6% of shareholders voted in favor of a resolution that asked JPMorgan to craft a plan to better align its operations with the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C… The development was also celebrated by Danielle Fugere, president of the nonprofit shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. "Shareholders today sent the message that it is past time for Chase to catch up with its peers, implement a strategy to decarbonize and de-risk its lending portfolio, and help build a more secure future for all," she said. Read More →
Read More“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 →
Read MoreDanielle 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 →
Read MoreA 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 →
Read MorePerformance 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 →
Read MoreCompensation 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 →
Read MoreContinuing 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.
Read MorePhillip 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 →
Read MoreOne 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 →
Read MoreCorporate 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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