The 2024 corporate annual general meeting season has begun, and that means it’s time to vote your proxy ballots. Why is voting proxy ballots so important?
The shareholder proposal process allows both large and small shareholders to alert corporate boards and the investor community to their concerns and to request timely action on emerging, or neglected, issues. A key element of process allows shareholders who meet certain criteria to submit proposals for inclusion in the company’s proxy statement for a vote by all shareholders holding voting shares.
Every year, members of the ICCR community file between 300 – 500 of these shareholder proposals on a range of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Resolutions that make it onto corporate proxy ballots then go on to a vote of all shareholders at corporate annual general meetings (AGMs), which generally occur each year in the spring. Votes in favor of shareholder resolutions in the double digits are very successful in focusing management and investor attention on ESG issues. The following proxy exempt solicitations and proxy memos are written by members of our coalition and lay out the arguments for why you should consider supporting their proposals.
AGM Date: 05.04.24. Berkshire Hathaway: Annual DEI Report
AGM Date: 04.26.24. Kellanova: Pesticide Use in the Supply Chain
AGM Date: 04.24.24. Goldman Sachs: Proxy Voting Review
AGM Date: Late April: IBM: Adopt GHG Reduction Targets
AGM Date: 04.11.24. Dow: Single-Use Plastics
AGM Date: 04.10.24. Lennar: Reduce GHG Emissions
AGM Date: 02.08.24. Tyson Foods: Report on the Alignment of Corporate Climate Lobbying Activities, Audit on Illegal Child Labor, and Circular Economy for Packaging
The post Vote Your Proxies – See 2024’s Proxy Memos and Exempt Solicitations first appeared on Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.