Shareholder Resolutions
Because shareholder advocacy requires a minimum level of stock ownership, only entities that own voting shares, like investment funds, can participate. Often, it’s prohibitively expensive for an individual who holds sufficient shares to submit these types of resolutions.
These restrictions also exclude the tens of millions of adults who care deeply about sustainable and socially responsible business practices who cannot, or will not, purchase securities but still want to do more to promote positive change in corporate policies—other than vote with their wallets or sign petitions.
Yes, there are organizations dedicated to changing corporate policies that will act on behalf of individuals who own sufficient shares in a specific company. But these groups do not enable anyone but these shareholders to directly impact corporate behaviors. This means that without a substantial ownership position as a shareholder, millions of us are unable to participate in shareholder advocacy. In short, our voices are unheard.
Until now.
Democratizing Shareholder Advocacy
Advance ESG democratizes shareholder advocacy, making it available to everyone regardless of whether or not they own any securities. We represent these unheard voices to corporate managements by submitting shareholder resolutions on behalf of our membership at corporate Annual General Meetings (AGM).
Because the only language corporations speak is money, our advocacy focuses on the financial benefits of adopting progressive policies and procedures such as protecting human rights and the environment. Advance ESG provides this service to our membership free-of-cost.
An Advance ESG Shareholder Advocacy Success – Addressing Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry
Advance ESG proposed, co-authored, and coordinated the submission of shareholder resolution at the 2023 Mondelēz AGM. Mondelēz is one of the world’s largest snack companies, and our resolution targeted the company’s continued use of child labor (including forced labor) in their cocoa supply chain.
We asserted that Mondelēz has a fiduciary responsibility to their investors to address this specific issue. We showed how the negative financial impacts of ignoring the child labor in their supply chains were not just significant, they were much greater than the long-term financial and reputational damage caused by the company not eliminating this inhumane practice.
The 2023 AGM season was especially hostile to progressive shareholder resolutions, and this resulted in few successes by the organizations which undertook them. A notable exception was our Mondelēz resolution which received sufficient shareholder support to meet the generally accepted threshold for success at their AGM. The resolution was re-submitted to the company’s 2024 AGM where it garnered even greater support from shareholders.
“Give me a lever long enough…and I shall move the world.”
Advance ESG leverages a corporation’s focus on their bottom line to drive positive changes in their behaviors that will benefit everyone, not just their investors. This unique approach clearly resonates with corporate shareholders and is the blueprint for our future advocacy efforts. Advance ESG provides the opportunity for everyone, whether or not they are shareholders, to directly impact corporate strategies and in doing so, to create a more sustainable and equitable world.