For far too long, the Securities and Exchange Commission—the nation’s top Wall Street watchdog—has responded only tepidly to the global climate crisis. This week, that finally changed. On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted three-to-one to issue draft rules that will require publicly traded corporations to be more transparent with investors about their greenhouse gas emissions and how climate change may pose a risk to their businesses. Read More →
Read MoreDanielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, an environmental shareholder-activist group, that said it’s a positive step for Exxon to find a use for gas that would otherwise be burned off into the atmosphere. “It is creating use of what would be otherwise wasted,” she said. Read More →
Read More"Companies are realizing that their investors want them to have less risk," said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow. He and others said shareholders may benefit from new guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission which makes it harder for companies to skip votes. Read More →
Read MoreIt certainly does to Andrew Behar, the chief executive of As You Sow, an advocacy and research group that frequently files shareholder proxy proposals on E.S.G. issues.
“We don’t think that you should have any weapons systems in an E.S.G. fund,” he said. The group provides an online tool on the web site Weapon Free Funds that enables investors to screen mutual funds and exchange-traded funds on this issue. Read More →
Read MoreOn Thursday, Shareholder advocacy organization As You Sow released Road to Zero Emissions: 55 Companies Ranked on Net Zero Progress, which ranked companies on their progress in aligning their emissions reductions with the 1.5-degree Paris Agreement goal.
“Approximately 84% of the assessed companies received total scores of ‘D’ or ‘F’’, underscoring that we have a long way to go toward net-zero progress,” said David Shugar, As You Sow’s climate initiative manager and lead report analyst. Read More →
Read MoreThen there’s the issue of carbon offsets. Science Based Targets, as well as Climate Action 100+, an investor-led initiative to make sure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters are taking necessary climate action, both advise that offsets should be avoided or at least limited. “What [they both] say is that carbon offsets should not be used until it’s absolutely necessary and because it’s infeasible to do anything else, so the focus has to be on companies actually reducing their own emissions and their own value chain emissions,” says Danielle Fugere, president and chief counsel at As You Sow. Read More →
Read MoreToo many still rely on buying permission to pollute through carbon offsets rather than changing how they source energy, says sustainable-investing advocate As You Sow. The nonprofit on Thursday issued its periodic report, “Road to Zero Emissions: 55 Companies Ranked on Net Zero Progress“.
“The next few years are critical in achieving emissions reductions and setting a less catastrophic path for the global climate,” said Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow. “To address the current gap between goals and action, As You Sow’s scorecard weights near-term, year-over-year greenhouse-gas emissions reductions as the largest scorecard component.
Read MoreThe As You Sow report looks at three factors in determining if CEOs earned their pay. First, HIP calculates how much CEOs should have earned in pay based on total shareholder return over the past five years. Any salary (including benefits, perks, and stock options) over that amount was characterized as excess pay. Second, As You Sow analyzed shareholder votes on pay for each company, looking at the percentage of shares that voted against the pay. Finally, both As You Sow and HIP evaluated the CEO-to-worker pay ratios for each company. Read More →
Read MoreOne of the most popular and easy-to-use tools is the online investment assessment tool from AsYouSow.org, “a non-profit foundation chartered to promote corporate social responsibility through shareholder advocacy,” called “Invest Your Values.” As You Sow promotes what it calls its “theory of change,” that forcing corporate leadership to address the impact of their policies and actions actually reduces the risk to corporations and shareholders. Read More →
Read MoreIn its supporting statement, As You Sow writes: ‘Quantitative data is sought so that investors can assess, understand and compare the effectiveness of companies’ [DE&I] programs and apply this analysis to investors’ portfolio management and securities’ selection process.’
The group cites studies including ones finding that companies with the strongest racial and ethnic diversity are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their industry medians, and that the 20 most diverse companies had an average annual five-year stock return 5.8 percent higher than the 20 least-diverse companies. Read More →
Read More“There’s never been a year with this number of high opposition votes against pay in the eight years of this report,” says Rosanna Landis Weaver, the report’s lead author. “Some boards acted as if pay for performance didn’t matter when COVID-19 was involved, and shareholders angrily rejected those packages.” But As You Sow argues that it’s time for more shareholders to reject excessive executive compensation simply because it’s “not in the best interests of shareholders,” and perhaps also immoral. Read More →
Read MoreProxy votes against executive pay at S&P 500 companies became more common last year and were often sparked by "questionable practices and metrics" like when companies eased performance targets during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy group focused on environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters.
As companies begin to issue their proxy statements showing compensation details in coming months, some will have gotten the message they should not tweak formulas to leaders' advantage even if a crisis looms, said Rosanna Landis Weaver, one of the report's authors. Read More →
Read More“We are pleased to see the company increase its commitment to reusable bottles as a proven method to reduce single-use plastic waste and promote a circular economy for packaging,” said Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president at As You Sow, which declared the move “industry-leading” among consumer conglomerates.
“We agree with the company that reusable packaging is among the most effective ways to reduce waste, use fewer resources and lower carbon emissions,” he said.
Read MoreGreen Century and activist investor As You Sow filed a shareholder proposal urging Coca-Cola to reduce single-use plastic. They are now considering whether to withdraw their proposal. Read More →
Read MoreAndrew Behar once again pens a letter to BlackRock’s CEO.
I particularly appreciate the creation of the “Center for Stakeholder Capitalism” as it answers the request As You Sow made in two shareholder resolutions for an implementation plan of the Business Roundtable pledge. This is exactly what we were looking for. You have my gratitude and personal offer to assist in any way to, “bring together leading CEOs, investors, policy experts, and academics to share their experience and deliver their insights”.
Read MoreThe University of California, San Diego, and the nonprofit sustainable-investing advocacy group As You Sow concluded that the linguistic patterns found in mutual fund and ETF prospectus language they reviewed has a relatively low correlation with its ESG rating. The collaborating teams spent four months analyzing 94 mutual funds and ETFs with “ESG” in their name.
“We see funds with ESG in their names getting F’s on our screening tools because they hold dozens of fossil fuel-extraction companies and coal-fired utilities,” said As You Sow CEO Andrew Behar.
Read MoreInvesting in ESG funds is like trying to navigate “the Wild West” as both regulations and enforcement fall short, according to Andrew Behar, the chief executive of As You Sow.
Read More"The theme is that investors are looking to all of their companies to address climate risk," said Danielle Fugere, the president and chief counsel of As You Sow.
Last year, 14 ESG resolutions backed by the sustainability advocacy group were voted on by shareholders of some of the nation’s largest companies, according to data compiled by the Manhattan Institute think tank. More than a quarter of As You Sow’s proposals were supported by those investors.
Read MoreBut even easier, you can use the databases compiled by the corporate accountability and shareholder advocacy nonprofit As You Sow—its Invest Your Values website offers several invaluable search tools for weighing the ethical and financial performance of up to 3,000 funds, updated monthly. Read More →
Read MoreAs You Sow, a nonprofit, filed a shareholder proposal calling for greater board oversight of efforts to reduce harmful user-generated content. “Shareholders need to understand why these technological solutions continue to fail to protect civil society,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow.
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