In addition to sharing sector-specific shareholder proposal trend data for the tech and life sciences industries in particular, Cooley’s “2024 Shareholder Proposal Highlights” details sector-agnostic climate-related shareholder proposals by category and average shareholder support.
Of 146 such proposals in total (vs. 151 in 2023), 70 proposals (compared to 58 in 2023), or nearly half, requested some sort of climate disclosure or reporting, as shown in the pie chart below:
Average support for climate reporting proposals in particular decreased from 24% in 2023 to 16% this season, whereas average support for climate proposals overall fell 2% from 21% last season to 19% this season.
On the firm’s watch list are binding proposals that seek to amend the company’s bylaws to require annual shareholder votes to approve director compensation (which we reported on here) and use of the new universal proxy Rule 14a-4 to bypass the Rule 14a-8 shareholder proposal limitations, which is discussed here.
This content first appeared in the Society Alert!