Proxy Voting Guidelines 2025

As You Sow, in partnership with Proxy Impact, continues our work on AS YOU VOTE, an environmental, social, and governance proxy voting service for institutional and retail shareholders. AS YOU VOTE offers a simple way to incorporate sustainable guidelines into your proxy voting to increase long-term sustainable growth and reduce material risk for all stakeholders. Shareholders can opt to use our voting guidelines as a resource for their own voting decisions or automatically set as their default vote (which can be adapted or customized with your own guidelines).

AS YOU VOTE guidelines were developed to be automated, “rules-based” votes available for institutional investors on the Broadridge Proxy Edge, iconik, and Tumelo platforms. They are available to individual investors on iconik.

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 because 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.

 Case-By-Case Recommendations 

Proxy items on issues such as mergers, acquisitions, and contested elections are beyond the scope of standardized rules. While we vote on selected high profile issues, the vast majority of recommendations on these issues are listed as case-by-case and left to subscribers to vote. Similarly, there are rare occurrences of items (generally on international proxies) that are written in a way that are not identifiable under our rules. These, too, would be listed as case-by-case votes.

 Additional ESG Screens 

We incorporate selected outside research that enhances our responsible voting 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, and we utilize many of As You Sow’s analyst reports to make recommendations. 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. We also offer a third policy that follows Catholic values.

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 is 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 representative will be in touch to assist you in subscribing to AS YOU VOTE as the technical routing of your ballots is dependent on how your shares are held by your custodian. Note that you can customize each ballot after our standard policy is applied. 

 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 one of our representatives at info@asyouvote.org.

START A DISCUSSION 

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

DISCLAIMER: This is a proxy voting policy and does not solicit votes. Do not send As You Sow or Proxy Impact your proxies; they will not be accepted. See our full disclaimer on page 19 of the 2025 report.