As You Sow, in partnership with Proxy Impact, continues our work on AS YOU VOTE, an environmental, social and sustainable governance (ESG) proxy voting service for institutional, individual, mutual fund, and ETF shareholders. AS YOU VOTE offers a simple way to incorporate ESG guidelines into your proxy voting. Shareholders can opt to use this as a resource for their own voting decisions or have it automatically set as their default vote which can be adapted or customized with their own guidelines. 

AS YOU VOTE guidelines were developed to be automated “rules-based” votes available for institutional investors on the Broadridge Proxy Edge platform. We have for the past year also been offering our services for retail investors through Iconik and for pass-thru voting with the Tumelo platform. 

 Rules Based Voting 

Rules-based automated voting follows the premise that we set recommendations in response to standard proxy items. Rules apply to information reported on a company’s proxy. For example, AS YOU VOTE recommends a vote against the CEO if they also serve as board chair as we support an independent board of directors at every company. That information is easily identifiable on the proxy ballot, and a rule is set for it. 

We also offer a “Women on Boards” variation of these guidelines that provides a rule to never vote against any woman on the board of directors. This rule overrides other rules that may call for voting against an entire board committee on which a woman director sits. 

 Case-By-Case Recommendations 

Proxy items on issues such as mergers, acquisitions, and contested elections are beyond the scope of standardized rules. Consequently, those recommendations are listed as case-by-case and left to the subscriber to vote. Similarly, there are rare occurrences of items (generally on international proxies) that are written in a way that are not identifiable by an automated system and show up as case-by-case. We manually vote these before the AGM and do a second check for new listings 48 hours before the deadline.

 Additional ESG Screens 

We do incorporate selected outside research that enhances our ESG vote guidelines. For example, we go beyond automated rules and apply an additional level of scrutiny on director votes for about two dozen companies that are major contributors to climate change. These companies, as identified by Majority Action, encompass industry leaders from the electrical utility, oil and gas, bank and insurance, and forestry sectors. We also vote against anti- ESG resolutions (see page 18), and we utilize As You Sow’s annual reports Pay for Climate Performance and The 100 Most Overpaid CEOs 2023 in making recommendations for about 150 executive compensation plans. Furthermore, in response to subscriber requests, we offer a second policy customized to support female board directors that automatically votes in favor of all female board members regardless of their committee membership. 

 Proxy voting was designed as a means for shareholders to send a message to management of companies in their portfolio. It is your right and responsibility to have a voice in how your company is managed. Proxy voting can be a powerful tool in shaping profitable and sustainable corporations – which, in turn, shape the world. 

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE 

Institutional Investors : Please fill out the form at www.asyouvote.org and select “institutional.” A Broadridge representative will be in touch to assist you. Once you are a Broadridge customer, institutional investors can then subscribe to AS YOU VOTE to see recommendations based on these guidelines. Proxies can be customized and voted individually or automated. 

 Retail Investors: Sign up through the Iconik platform at www.iconikapp.com/as-you-sow or www.asyouvote.org and select “individual.” 

 Asset Managers: To enable a pass-thru option for underlying shareholders contact Tumelo at https://www.tumelo.com/. 

START A DISCUSSION 

For those investors who are exploring how to align their voting with ESG values – such as foundations, endowments, faith-based institutions, and asset managers – please use these guidelines as a baseline for discussion with your investment committees, trustees, financial advisors, and clients.