Michael Flaherty is senior vice president and Josh Clarkson is vice president at Gladstone Place Partners LLC. This post is based on a Gladstone Place Partners publication by Mr. Flaherty and Clarkson. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes Social Responsibility Resolutions by Scott Hirst (discussed on the Forum here).
Guns, addiction, discrimination.
While classic shareholder activists remain a front-burner concern for corporate America, companies are also grappling with a wave of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policy pressures. Within that struggle, the “S” factor is under the microscope.
So far this year, 74 percent of all shareholder proposals were aimed at environmental and social causes, a percentage nearly double that from five years ago, according to ISS Analytics, the data arm of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc.