No one is doing more thoughtful work on shareholder engagement than The Shareholder Commons and we appreciate their discussion of their slate of shareholder proposals this year.

Externalities Analyses: Shareholder Proposals for System Stewardship   Our 19 proposals focus on systematic risks, including antimicrobial resistance, declining public health, poverty wages, misinformation, climate change, and more. We’ve asked most of these companies to publish a report on external costs they impose on the broader economy, and how and to what extent those costs affect their shareholders’ diversified portfolios. 

Here’s the full proposal list. For more detail, please visit our website, where we have linked each company name to the full text of the relevant proposal, and where we’re publishing exempt solicitations as they’re filed.  

The common thread running through all these proposals is the question of how a company’s externalized costs affect shareholders by reducing the value of other assets in their portfolios. Companies are not required to disclose such costs, leaving investors without crucial information about the full impact that companies have on their diversified portfolios. Creation of externalities analyses would be a critical first step toward allowing investors to grapple with the reality that prioritizing individual companies’ internal financial returns—even over the long-term–may not always be in their (or their beneficiaries’) best interests.   

Here Comes Proxy Season