“Proxy Preview 2022” from As You Sow, the Sustainable Investments Institute, and Proxy Impact, reports on a record-breaking 529 environmental, social, and related sustainable governance proposals filed as of February 24, which include 412 pending proposals, 11 proposals omitted after no-action challenges (with another at least 103 no-action requests pending), and 106 withdrawn.
In terms of filed proposals, climate change proposals account for the largest single category at 21% of all proposals, followed by corporate political influence at 19%, and human rights at 15% as depicted here:
The report includes an overview followed by detailed analysis on each proposal category and an index of all companies with proposals this season across each of these categories:
- Environmental: climate change and environmental management
- Social: corporate political influence, decent work, workplace diversity, ethical finance, health, and human rights
- Sustainable Governance: board diversity, board climate oversight, sustainability (various, e.g., ESG pay)
- “Conservatives” (i.e., proposals filed by proponents with a conservative political leaning)
As You Sow’s resolution tracker may be accessed here. This page shows the number of proposals filed at each company by proposal category.
See As You Sow's release; Fried Frank Steven Lofchie’s post: “SEC Staff Issues Letters Requiring Inclusion of "Social Policy" in Proxy Proposals”; these articles from Reuters, Corporate Secretary, ESG Investor, and Responsible Investor; and numerous additional resources on our Proxy Season 2022 and Shareholder Proposals pages.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!