Vanguard posted its updated proxy voting policy for the 2025 proxy season. Key changes compared to its 2024 policy are as follows:
Board composition. Consistent thematically with BlackRock’s updated voting policy (which we most recently reported on here), Vanguard’s updated and significantly streamlined board composition policy (p6)—among other things—eliminates expectations that were included in the 2024 policy (p6) on diversity of personal characteristics such as gender, race, and ethnicity, as reflected in this redline.
Environmental & social shareholder proposals. The updated environmental/social proposals provisions in the 2025 policy (p10) exclude discussion of specific types of environmental and social proposals that were previously characterized (2024 policy at p11) as proposals Vanguard funds would likely support assuming satisfaction of enumerated threshold criteria, which remain intact in the updated policy, as reflected in this redline.
Editor’s Note: Further to our recent report: “BlackRock Eliminates 30% Diversity Guideline from 2025 Policies,” corporate issuers who are members of the Society can request a complimentary copy of Proxy Analytic’s memo summarizing BlackRock's recently released updated Engagement Priorities and proxy voting guidelines via this email address.