ESG Archive

Petrochemical companies are facing pressure to disclose incidents where they have spilled plastic into the ocean, which leads to what is said to be a major source of pollution. As You Sow, a non-profit organization that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility via engagement, investor pressure and other legal strategies, has filed proposals seeking such reports with four major companies this proxy season. If approved, the proposals would req...

Human capital management is fast becoming an important topic for corporations and investors alike, and governance teams and directors need to be prepared to tackle the challenges and opportunities it entails. Earlier this year, in his annual letter to chief executives, ...

New analysis from Ceres and FundVotes indicates robust growth in support for climate-related proposals among the largest institutional investors operating in the US. During the 2018 proxy season, 46 percent of asset managers voted for more than half of climate-related shareholder proposals tracked by Ceres, up from roughly 33 percent in 2017. The shareholder proposals analyzed asked companies to take action by, for example, setting greenhouse gas reduction targets, ...

New research underlines the increasing pressure on companies – and in turn their governance teams – to respond to demands from investors with effective engagement, disclosure and policies on an ever-broader array of topics, including human capital. Eighty-five percent of investors polled by Morrow Sodali say climate change will be the most-prioritized sustainability topic of their corporate engagements in 2019 – up 31 percentage points from last year and 35 pe...