{"id":32859,"date":"2024-07-19T19:18:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T19:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/?p=32859"},"modified":"2024-08-06T20:01:06","modified_gmt":"2024-08-06T20:01:06","slug":"whos-speaking-up-to-protect-shareholder-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/whos-speaking-up-to-protect-shareholder-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s speaking up to protect shareholder democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Image: <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@glenovbrankovic\">Glenov Brankovic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.is\/OStB8\">Exxon shouldn\u2019t be able to silence its shareholders<\/a>: \u201cExxon Mobil\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/corpgov.law.harvard.edu\/2024\/06\/12\/exxonmobils-lawsuit-against-its-shareholders-a-cautionary-tale\/\"> unprecedented lawsuit against two shareholders<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hagerty.senate.gov\/press-releases\/2024\/02\/01\/hagerty-introduces-legislation-to-rid-private-companies-of-progressive-activism\/\">latest political efforts<\/a> to silence investors\u2019 concerns., \u201cWhat\u2019s at stake, quite simply, is our future. It\u2019s time to let corporations, politicians and money managers know: The voice of the few will not strong-arm and silence the many. At the end of the day, boards remain accountable to us\u201d Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs wrote in the<em> Houston Chronicle<\/em>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6982093\/exxon-calpers-climate-annual-meeting\/\">divergence<\/a> between how ExxonMobil and some of its investors view their financial interests demonstrates a new dynamic bound to grow as climate change becomes a more urgent societal challenge. <em>TIME<\/em>, May 28, 2024<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Investors are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sierraclub.org\/articles\/2024\/06\/shareholder-voting-season-shows-investors-want-manage-climate-risk-not-deny-it\">ten times more likely<\/a> to support improving corporate sustainability and social responsibility, versus backtracking on such commitments and values, the latest shareholder voting season shows: while resolutions supporting greater disclosure on climate and human rights issues have generally attracted support from roughly a quarter to a third of shareholders, \u201canti-ESG\u201d resolutions have garnered merely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.responsible-investor.com\/resolution-round-up-is-the-arterial-bleed-on-esg-proposal-support-over\/\">2% support on average<\/a>. <em>Sierra Club<\/em>, June 21, 2024<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Legislation <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/90824901\/secret-money-fueling-conservative-anti-esg-push\">opposing ESG initiatives<\/a> once again dominated state legislative agendas in the 2024 sessions, but increased opposition from everyone from investors to business leaders helped quash nearly all of those efforts, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pleiadesstrategy.com\/state-house-report-bill-tracker-republican-anti-esg-state-legislative-attacks-on-responsible-investing-continue-weakened-and-reshaped-by-their-costly-reality-and-a-year-of-continued-opposition\">new report from policy research and advisory firm Pleiades Strategy<\/a> has found. Higher costs for taxpayers\u2014and lower returns\u2014led to a sharp decline in lawmakers\u2019 support for anti-ESG bills. <em>Pleiades Strategy<\/em>, June 18, 2024<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This AGM season saw worker led shareholder proposals around workplace safety and racial audits\u2013like a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/bringing-labor-movement-americas-biggest-employer-opinion-1909085\">Walmart<\/a> associate and longtime United For Respect leader reintroduced a proposal calling for an independent review of company health and safety policies and practices\u2014and while the proposal didn&#8217;t pass, it received a larger share of votes than any other proposal. Walmart workers also reintroduced a proposal calling on the company to conduct a racial equity audit\u2014it got the second-largest share of votes. <em>Newsweek<\/em>, June 7, 2024.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"tmnf_excerpt\"><p>&#8220;What\u2019s at stake, quite simply, is our future. It\u2019s time to let corporations, politicians and money managers know: The voice of the few will not strong-arm and silence the many. At the end of the day, boards remain accountable to us\u201d Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","slim_seo":{"description":"Shareholders are speaking up to protect workers' rights and how companies conduct environmental policy."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[108,60,107,102,109],"class_list":["post-32859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","tag-agm","tag-esg","tag-labor-rights","tag-latest-on-esg","tag-shareholders"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash.jpg",1920,1282,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-768x513.jpg",750,501,true],"large":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-1024x684.jpg",750,501,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-1536x1026.jpg",1536,1026,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash.jpg",1920,1282,false],"knowbase_single":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-790x450.jpg",790,450,true],"knowbase_blog":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-310x310.jpg",310,310,true],"knowbase_tabs":["https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/glenov-brankovic-ZYUcxbMeaIY-unsplash-90x90.jpg",90,90,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Polyana","author_link":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/author\/polyana\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"\"What\u2019s at stake, quite simply, is our future. It\u2019s time to let corporations, politicians and money managers know: The voice of the few will not strong-arm and silence the many. At the end of the day, boards remain accountable to us\u201d Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32859"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32867,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32859\/revisions\/32867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esgexplainer.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}