AS YOU VOTE™ — A New Proxy Voting Service From As You Sow
Vote Your Values while you fund shareholder advocacy and proxy voter education.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Stefanie Spear, [email protected], 216-387-1609
BERKELEY, CA—MARCH 17, 2021—As You Sow, the nation’s leading non-profit shareholder advocacy organization, has launched AS YOU VOTE™ in partnership with Proxy Impact to enable all shareholders to vote their values.
If you are a foundation or impact investor who wants to vote your shares progressively and have your votes work for change, AS YOU VOTE is the solution. AS YOU VOTE offers the full range of progressive proxy voting and directly supports As You Sow’s mission-aligned, non-profit shareholder advocacy, tackling issues like climate change, racial justice, ocean plastics, industrial farming, and modern slavery. In addition, a portion of As You Sow fees are donated to other non-profits working on shareholder voter education for impact investors.
With AS YOU VOTE, investors now can easily, efficiently, and economically vote their values.
“As You Sow has been offering proxy voting guidelines for many years,” said Andrew Behar, As You Sow CEO. “The guidelines have always been suggestions on how a progressive foundation or impact investor might want to vote. For example, if a company has fewer than 50% women on its board, we recommend voting against the nominating committee. Now, any institutional shareholder can subscribe to AS YOU VOTE, and with one click, automatically vote a progressive slate.”
Fiona Reynolds, CEO of Principles of Responsible Investing (PRI) — a group representing $90 trillion in assets under management — said in a recent Responsible Investor interview, “As stewards of capital, exercising voting rights is an important part of an investor’s responsibilities. Voting on shareholder resolutions is a powerful instrument in the stewardship toolkit as it helps communicate shareholders’ views to companies, as does investors being transparent about disclosing their voting records.”
The AS YOU VOTE slate is developed and maintained in partnership with Proxy Impact, a proxy voting firm based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles.
“Shareholders now have a resource to vote their proxies in a way that supports their values,” said Proxy Impact CEO Michael Passoff. “As You Vote will provide recommendations on all proxy ballot items including board of directors, executive compensation, and environmental and social resolutions.”
The new service is available on ProxyEdge®, Broadridge’s institutional voting platform. The platform’s neutral, open architecture allows organizations to publish their voting policies, with 14 diverse 3rd party recommendation providers already available today.
For more information, visit AsYouVote.org.
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As You Sow is a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies. See our resolutions here.