The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Fri, 08 May 2026 11:32:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png 2019 ESG Proxy Voting Trends by 50 U.S. Fund Families – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 2019 ESG Proxy Voting Trends by 50 U.S. Fund Families https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/03/23/2019-esg-proxy-voting-trends-by-50-u-s-fund-families/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2019-esg-proxy-voting-trends-by-50-u-s-fund-families https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/03/23/2019-esg-proxy-voting-trends-by-50-u-s-fund-families/#comments Mon, 23 Mar 2020 12:56:05 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=127609?d=20200324114453EDT Posted by Jackie Cook and Jon Hale, Morningstar, Inc., on Monday, March 23, 2020
Editor's Note:

Jackie Cook is Director of Manager Research and Jon Hale is head of sustainability research for Morningstar, Inc. This post is based on their Morningstar memorandum. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes  Social Responsibility Resolutions by Scott Hirst (discussed on the Forum here) and Reconciling Fiduciary Duty and Social Conscience: The Law and Economics of ESG Investing by a Trustee by Robert H. Sitkoff and Max M. Schanzenbach (discussed on the Forum here).

Key Takeaways

  • Asset-manager proxy voting support for ESG-related shareholder resolutions has increased considerably over the past five years, with average support across 50 large fund families rising to 46% from 27%.
  • Funds offered by Allianz Global Investors, Blackstone, Eaton Vance, and PIMCO were the most likely to support shareholder-proposed ESG resolutions in 2019, voting for these resolutions more than 87% of the time.
  • Five of the 10 largest fund families—Vanguard, BlackRock, American Funds, T. Rowe Price, and DFA Funds offered by Dimensional Fund Advisors—voted against more than 88% of ESG-related shareholder resolutions.
  • Large fund groups voting against ESG-related shareholder resolutions kept many of these initiatives from achieving majority support. Nineteen of 23 resolutions earning more than 40% support would have passed if supported by just one of the largest two asset managers.

Fund Proxy Votes Reflect Asset Managers’ ESG Stewardship

Since 2004, U.S.-domiciled open-end and exchange-traded mutual funds have been required to report their annual proxy voting records in SEC filings. Each year at the end of August, asset managers must disclose—fund by fund, item by item—how they voted on portfolio company ballots for meetings held in the preceding proxy calendar year, which runs from July through June.

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