Resolutions to watch

Voting on resolutions is one of the primary means by which shareholders can exert influence over their investee companies.

We've collated a list of key resolutions being filed at major companies in 2024, that we believe should be a priority for investors this proxy voting season. These resolutions provide a barometer for how seriously asset managers are taking crucial social and environmental issues, and will form part of the wider body of resolutions with which we monitor asset manager voting in our annual voting analysis later in the year.

We urge asset managers to vote in line with our recommendations on these resolutions, publicly pre-declare voting intention, and publish a rationale for any deviations in voting outcomes. Asset managers’ voting on these resolutions, as well as Climate Action 100+ flagged resolutions, and a range of other resolutions on social and environmental topics, will be analysed in order to produce our annual voting analysis and ranking of asset managers by their performance.

We urge asset owners to ask your asset manager to do the same, adopting a comply or explain policy, and to use this list to challenge and evaluate your asset manager on their voting decisions.

Both votes in favour of shareholder resolutions and votes against management proposed resolutions can be used as part of an effective stewardship approach. Please see our RISE paper on escalation for guidance.

The Resolutions Tracker was published on 11 March 2024. More resolutions may be added as they are made public. We aim to update the tracker regularly.

For more information contact research.secretariat@shareaction.org.

For investors looking for further guidance to act on climate and racial equity, we recommend also Majority Action’s proxy voting guides. The ‘Proxy Voting for a 1.5C World’ guide recommends cases for voting against company directors, while the ‘Proxy Voting for Racial Equity’ guide outlines shareholder proposals investors should support.

For recommendations on the use of votes against standing items to hold oil and gas companies to account for their climate impacts, see Reclaim Finance’s 2024 AGMs guide.

See also The Shareholder Commons’ publication, Portfolios on the Ballot 2024, for proxy voting guidance designed to protect the social and environmental systems which support the wider economy.

Proxy research advisers PIRC are undertaking a project providing climate-related analysis and recommendations on how investors could be consistently exercising their votes on standing items rather than relying on non-binding shareholder proposals. The project is focused on ensuring issuers in high-emitting sectors are providing investors with sufficient material information on their climate strategies to make informed investment and stewardship decisions. The reports are based on sector frameworks, both of which can be found on PIRC’s website as they are published.