Don’t believe the conservative hype. The campaign against sustainable investing is a scheme propped up by special interest groups, shady billionaires, and the fossil fuel industry. It has no future among investors, fund managers or anyone who wants to protect their money from foreseeable risks.
Read moreNAM's SEC Lawsuit Undermines Shareholder Rights
In May 2023, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) successfully filed a motion to intervene in a federal case brought by the anti-ESG group the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), challenging a shareholder resolution No Action determination. The NAM motion opened a broader challenge to the SEC’s authority to provide guidance regarding whether shareholder resolutions could be allowed on a company’s proxy for a vote, claiming that this process violates principles of corporate First Amendment rights enshrined in the Citizens United ruling.
Read morePrudent Climate Action by Shareholders is Legal and Necessary Despite Anti-ESG Rhetoric
Over the past decade, the investor community has worked with hundreds of companies, regulators and investment organizations to address climate change. Why? Because cutting emissions is a prudent and effective business management strategy that reduces a host of risks
Read moreSCOTUS Decision Could Scuttle Regulatory Agencies and Shareholder Rights
The modern administrative system was set up in recognition of the needs of a technologically developed society where the lives of citizens are affected by dozens and dozens of complex areas. From air pollution, to drugs, the internet, transportation, education, chemicals, railroads, airwaves, consumer protection, and health, agencies set the rules of the road for some of the most important areas of our lives.
Read more2024 Update on Shareholder Rights Legal and Policy Developments
This year proxy and shareholder proposal rules and practice are evolving to create greater accountability and efficiency. Simultaneously, so called anti-ESG efforts are pressing a more disruptive policy agenda that could eviscerate the rights of share owners to file and vote on environmental and social proposals.
Read moreA Funder's Journey to Shareholder Advocacy and Active Ownership
My first serious introduction to the concepts and practice of “active ownership” and proxy voting came in the early 2000s as the director of a newly created family foundation, the Singing Field Foundation. At that time, I joined the Environmental Grantmakers Association and began attending its conferences and those of other environmental funder affinity groups. Earlier, as a college student, I was on the periphery of the campaigns around university endowments and investments in South Africa. And, I have always felt that mission-driven organizations with invested assets should take great care that those investments not be in conflict with the mission.
Read moreWill New Wave of Natural Gas Plants Be Stranded Assets?
Natural gas proponents have long framed it as a “bridge fuel” for meeting rising energy demands, while decreasing utilities’ dependence on carbon-intensive coal. Unfortunately, the power sector is now more focused on extending the natural gas bridge than crossing it.
Read moreSmall Cap Companies have a role to play on Climate
In the United States alone, 23 different billion-dollar weather and climate disasters occurred, incurring more than $90 billion in damages in just the first eight months of the year. With these impacts cascading through corporate value chains, the business case for action on climate risk has never been clearer.
Read moreUnraveling offsetting and avoided emissions
Between now and 2030, companies must reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to minimize the risk of exceeding a 1.5°C global temperature increase. Investors want corporate climate transition strategies that deliver tangible emissions reductions and scalable net-zero solutions.
Read moreCompanies Need to Address Existential and Financial Risk of Biodiversity
Biodiversity loss is a global systemic risk. Wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69 percent since 1970, with an estimated one million plant and animal species at risk of extinction by 2050 – approximately 25 percent of all species on Earth.
Read moreInvestors Leverage Shareholder Proposals for Just Transition Impact
As thousands of large companies make the transition to a net-zero emissions economy by reducing greenhouse gases, they must not only decarbonize but also consider the real impacts of changes in their operations on their employees and the communities where they operate.
Read moreClean Energy Ratio Helps Meet Net Zero Goals
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, on behalf of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System, and Board of Education Retirement System (the NYC Retirement Systems), submitted shareholder proposals to six major North American Banks — Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Royal Bank of Canada — requesting that they disclose annually their Clean Energy Supply Financing Ratio (the Clean Energy Ratio).
Read moreDo Oil and Gas Industry Divestments Result in Emissions Increases?
As governments worldwide struggle to keep the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5°C within reach, pressure on oil and gas companies is reaching an all-time high. Global bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and International Energy Agency are emphatic about the urgent need for transparent, immediate, and ambitious decarbonization in the oil and gas industry.
Read morePressing the Tobacco Industry to Clean Up Its Plastic Cigarette Waste
While soda bottles and fast-food containers are usually cited as major sources of single-use plastic that escape capture and pollute rivers and oceans, cigarettes often have been overlooked as another major source of plastic pollution. Yet cigarette filters are a form of single-use plastic and, by volume, are likely the most littered form of plastic on the planet.
Read moreDeep Sea Mining Poses Risks to Biodiversity, Climate and Investors
As You Sow recently launched a Biodiversity Program in response to increasing global concern about the systemic risks to nature posed by biodiversity loss and looming ecosystem collapse. These risks include food insecurity, fresh water, clean air, climate change and the collapse of innumerable ecosystem services relied on by companies, communities and the world. The benefits of a functioning environment are at risk and shareholders are beginning to raise the alarm.
Read moreCorporate Lobbying Disclosure is Material Investor information
For 2024, more than 30 shareholder proposals have been filed asking for lobbying disclosure reports that include federal and state lobbying amounts, payments to trade associations and 501(c)(4) social welfare groups used for lobbying and payments to tax-exempt organizations that write and endorse model legislation.
Read moreCorporate State Lobbying Remains a Black Hole
A Code for Corporate Political Spending Disclosure
Today’s headlines are focused on the threats to democracy fueled by the looming 2024 presidential and congressional elections. Far less attention is being paid to the corporate treasury dollars underwriting activities that imperil our democracy.
Read moreSupport for Inclusive, Healthy Work Force Leads to Business Growth
Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) works to ensure all people have equitable access to quality, affordable sexual and reproductive health care no matter their background or location. This includes protecting the ability of 600 Planned Parenthood health centers to serve economically and medically underserved patients across the United States.
Read moreA Living Wage is a Human Right
Income disparity is one of the starkest indicators of our societal failures to foster a more equitable society and as a result, a more dynamic economy. In the United States 95 million workers have limited workplace flexibility and mobility, low collective bargaining ability, and minimal (if any) health and financial benefits. They also experience the highest exposure to workplace health and safety hazards, job stress, employment volatility, and exploitation.
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