Companies Face Rising Pressure to Offer ESG Retirement Options
Companies Face Rising Pressure to Offer ESG Retirement Options

An estimated $32.3 trillion was invested in US retirement plans as of September 2022, with nearly $9 trillion in direct contribution plans such as 401(k)s, according to tracking by the Investment Company Institute. While many retirement plans funnel money into companies that fuel the climate crisis, explains Andrew Behar, chief executive officer of the shareholder activist group As You Sow, “people are just completely ignorant when it comes to what’s actually in their plan.” Read More →

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Invest Your ValuesAs You Sowhomepage, 401k, Andrew Behar, ESG
Hershey's faces a lawsuit over heavy metals in its dark chocolate bars
Hershey's faces a lawsuit over heavy metals in its dark chocolate bars

Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesperson for the National Confectioners Association — which represents chocolate manufactures including Hershey's, Lindt and Godiva — referred NPR to its Dec. 16 statement, which said, "The products cited in this study are in compliance with strict quality and safety requirements, and the levels provided to us by Consumer Reports testing are well under the limits established by our settlement with As You Sow" Read More →

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Toxic EnforcementAs You Sowhomepage, chocolate
Lead and Cadmium Could Be in Your Dark Chocolate
Lead and Cadmium Could Be in Your Dark Chocolate

For lead, that will mean changes in harvesting and manufacturing practices, says Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow. Such practices could include minimizing soil contact with beans as they lie in the sun, and drying beans on tables or clean tarps away from roads or with protective covers, so lead-contaminated dust won’t land on them. Another option is finding ways to remove metal contaminants when beans are cleaned at factories, Fugere says. Read More →

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Toxic EnforcementAs You Sowhomepage, Danielle Fugere, chocolate
Retirement Plans Become New Battleground for ESG
Retirement Plans Become New Battleground for ESG

All these issues are related. Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, explains that most companies put employees who don’t choose specific investments into target-date funds for their retirement plans. (This is why they’re called the “default” option.) Such funds “are fairly high in high-carbon companies such as oil and gas,” Fugere says. In the past, companies have argued that Erisa prohibited them from addressing issues like climate change. A Trump-era rule previously banned consideration of ESG issues in decisions related to default options. Read More →

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Invest Your ValuesAs You Sowhomepage, ESG, Danielle Fugere
The Fight for ESG Retirement Options Is Kicking Off in Big Tech
The Fight for ESG Retirement Options Is Kicking Off in Big Tech

“The broad message is that this fund is essentially not taking steps to consider climate risk,” says Andrew Montes, director of digital strategies at As You Sow. “So people are, probably without their knowledge, being exposed to significant levels of investment in companies that are both contributing to the climate crisis but also are at significant risk from the climate crisis.” Read More →

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Invest Your ValuesAs You Sowhomepage, Andrew Montes, 401k, Microsoft
Racial diversity in management linked to positive financial performance, new analysis shows
Racial diversity in management linked to positive financial performance, new analysis shows

A new analysis of data from nearly 300 companies has found more evidence of a positive link between diverse workforces and management and the financial performance of companies. A report published Thursday by As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy group that has long pushed companies to release information about their workplace demographics, includes findings based on 277 companies’ workforce data compared against more than a dozen financial metrics. Read More →

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Social JusticeAs You Sowhomepage, Meredith Benton, Olivia Knight, racial justice scorecard, DEI, EEO-1 Data
Which publicly traded firms have the best and worst racial equity grades?
Which publicly traded firms have the best and worst racial equity grades?

At least 94 firms on the S&P 100 have released or promised to share the figures about the demographics of their workforces that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collects each year, which is a huge jump from the 23 that did so two years earlier, according to a report this month by nonprofit shareholder advocacy organization As You Sow. In the past two years, the largest companies have bulked up public disclosure of data about the gender, race and ethnicity of their workforces by 300% or more in several categories. Read More →

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Social JusticeAs You Sowhomepage, Meredith Benton, Olivia Knight, racial justice scorecard
Elon Musk’s Tesla Pay Package Goes To Trial Monday Amid Twitter Chaos
Elon Musk’s Tesla Pay Package Goes To Trial Monday Amid Twitter Chaos

Elon Musk is keeping Delaware Chancery Court busy. The same judge who shepherded months of contentious discovery in the billionaire’s legal battle with Twitter will preside at trial in a shareholder lawsuit against Tesla’s board over his 2018 pay package, calling it “the largest in human history.” “It’s a very unusual filing. But what about Elon Musk isn’t unusual?” said Rosanna Landis-Weaver, a governance and compensation expert for shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. Read More →

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CEO PayAs You Sowhomepage, Rosanna Landis Weaver
10 Reasons Why ESG Won’t Be Stopped
10 Reasons Why ESG Won’t Be Stopped

“Things have to be verified in a standardized format. Right now, it’s creating distrust between companies and owners,” says Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, the shareholder advocacy nonprofit.

Meanwhile, fund names should accurately reflect their ESG practices. “There is no connection between a prospectus and its holdings,” Behar says. In January, As You Sow published a study of 94 mutual funds and ETFs with the word ESG in their name. Based on the firm’s criteria of what makes a good ESG fund, 60 received a D or an F grade. Read More →

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Invest Your ValuesAs You Sowhomepage, Andrew Behar, ESG
New SEC Rules to Shed Light on BlackRock, Vanguard ESG Votes
New SEC Rules to Shed Light on BlackRock, Vanguard ESG Votes

ESG disclosure is maturing and starting to get the support it needs from the SEC, said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, a shareholder advocacy group that pushes companies to be more socially responsible.

“It’s all moving us into a place where we can actually judge which companies are part of an economy based on justice and sustainability,” Behar said. Read More →

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Environmental HealthAs You Sowhomepage, Andrew Behar, ESG, SEC
End of an Era for Anti-Social Media
End of an Era for Anti-Social Media

Andrew Behar, CEO of US-based shareholder advocacy NGO As You Sow, says platforms like Meta are operating under “an authoritarian regime”.

“We’ve been filing social-focused resolutions at Meta for six years, but change doesn’t happen if [Zuckerberg] and his board don’t agree,” he says. “Although it’s technically a public company, it operates like a private one, with one man at the helm.” Read More →

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Social JusticeAs You Sowhomepage, Andrew Behar, Meta, free speech
Republicans Eye the SEC’s Climate-Related Disclosure Regulations, Should They Take Control of Congress
Republicans Eye the SEC’s Climate-Related Disclosure Regulations, Should They Take Control of Congress

“Politics should be separate from markets,” said Danielle Fugere, president of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow. “The world is transitioning towards a greener economy, and markets are adjusting to that. It is absurd for lawmakers to think that they’re going to put a stop to that progress. It would be detrimental to U.S. businesses.” Read More →

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EnergyAs You SowDanielle Fugere, SEC, climate
Nutrition advocates want investors to improve food sector practices
Nutrition advocates want investors to improve food sector practices

As You Sow focuses on environmental and climate issues but has waged investor campaigns or gone to court on several food-related issues. The nonprofit group and the National Confectioners Association released a report in August identifying growing and harvesting conditions for cacao beans that led to toxic heavy metals lead and cadmium in chocolate. Read More →

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Environmental HealthAs You SowDanielle Fugere
US' 47 Largest Carbon-Emitters Fail to Incentivize CEO Pay Based on Climate Performance
US' 47 Largest Carbon-Emitters Fail to Incentivize CEO Pay Based on Climate Performance

Shareholder advocacy organization As You Sow (AYS) has released a report finding that, while more and more companies say they link CEO pay to climate-change-mitigation and emissions-reduction goals, such incentives generally lack meaningful metrics or sufficient compensation to incentivize climate progress. Read More →

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CEO PayAs You SowRosanna Landis Weaver, David Shugar, Melissa Walton, pay for climate
Top Polluters Fail to Tie CEO Pay to Carbon-Cutting Goals
Top Polluters Fail to Tie CEO Pay to Carbon-Cutting Goals

As You Sow analyzed the 2021 chief executive officer compensation packages of 47 US companies included in the Climate Action 100+ initiative, an investor-led program to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters curb their footprints. It found that many firms didn’t tie CEO pay to climate metrics, and when they did, it’s wasn’t to a level that would prompt bosses to meaningfully reduce emissions. Read More →

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Energy, CEO PayAs You Sowhomepage, climate change, Melissa Walton
Proxy season 2022: The story behind falling support for ESG proposals
Proxy season 2022: The story behind falling support for ESG proposals

According to a report from Proxy Impact, the Sustainable Investments Institute and As You Sow, the six months to the end of June saw a record-breaking 282 votes and 34 majority votes (equal to the same period last year) backing ESG shareholder proposals seeking disclosure and action from US companies. This backs the widespread narrative of recent years that ESG-linked investing and pressure on companies to meet expectations on issues such as climate change and diversity continue unabated. Read More →

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Shareholder AdvocacyAs You Sowshareholder impact report, proxy season