Shareholder Resolutions

Anyone who owns stock in a company is able to influence a company’s management decisions by voting on resolutions at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM). These resolutions often involve issues which have a significant impact on each of our lives. 

How More People Can Have a Voice

Shareholders may also submit their own shareholder resolutions to be voted on at the company’s annual general meeting. 

However, this requires a minimum level of stock ownership and only entities that own enough voting shares, like investment funds, can participate. Even if an individual holds sufficient shares to submit these types of resolutions, it’s often prohibitively expensive. 

These restrictions basically exclude tens of millions of adults who care deeply about sustainable and socially responsible business practices to have any influence over corporations and how they impact our world. Their only recourse to create change is to vote with their wallets or sign petitions. 

Advance ESG democratizes shareholder advocacy by making it available to everyone regardless of whether or not they own stock in a company.

By becoming a legally authorized agent (proxy), Advance ESG is able to submit shareholder resolutions on behalf of our membership. Since corporations prioritize their bottom line, our resolutions focus on the financial benefits of our proposals. 

An Advance ESG Shareholder Advocacy Success – Addressing Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry

Mondelēz is one of the world’s largest snack companies. We became aware of the company’s continued use of child labor (including forced labor) in their cocoa supply chain.

Advance ESG proposed, co-authored, and coordinated the submission of shareholder resolution at Mondelēz’s 2023 annual meeting to address this inhumane practice. We argued that the continued use of this kind of labor compromised not just the company’s ethics and reputation, but also its bottom line, and this violated their fiduciary responsibility to investors.

We showed how ignoring the child labor in their supply chains could cause their products to be banned in the EU, in addition to significant reputational damage to the company, if they did not eliminate this inhumane practice. 

Gaining traction

The 2023 AGM season was especially hostile to progressive shareholder resolutions, and few organizations which undertook them had success. 

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 gained even greater shareholder backing from shareholders.

It’s About More Than Just Money

Advance ESG’s success is the result of focusing on how today’s corporate practices—such as inadequately monitoring supply chains and management’s focus on increasing their stock value—actually has a negative financial impact on their company.  

We leverage 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.