Miles Rogerson is a Financial Journalist at Diligent Market Intelligence. This post is based on his Diligent memorandum. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes The Illusory Promise of Stakeholder Governance (discussed on the Forum here); Does Enlightened Shareholder Value Add Value? (discussed on the Forum here) both by Lucian A. Bebchuk and Roberto Tallarita; How Much Do Investors Care about Social Responsibility? (discussed on the Forum here) by Scott Hirst, Kobi Kastiel, and Tamar Kricheli-Katz; and Big Three Power, and Why it Matters (discussed on the Forum here) by Lucian A. Bebchuk and Scott Hirst.
A select group of ESG proposals have led the way in terms of shareholder support during the 2023 proxy season. Freedom of association, alongside broader human rights reporting proposals, won occasional majority support from investors in the 2023 proxy season, as shareholders identified employee retention and recruitment as a potential risk resulting from current market volatility.
In a market plagued by rising inflation and cost-of-living concerns, a number of shareholder proposals on pay equity and severance package approval were also forthcoming.