Political spending proposals continue to increase in both number and focus, now making up nearly a third of the 349 social and environmental proposals filed so far in this year's US proxy season. It's not too surprising that the proportion has risen from just a quarter of the 360 proposals filed at this time last year. This is an election year, and the effect of the Citizens United decision of the US Supreme Court is now being felt in the election campaign for the presidency, as well as all the Congressional races at stake. The proxy voting service called As You Sow, which specialises in social and environmental issues, reckons that concern about the more mainstream part of that agenda have been sidelined this year. "But it is not for lack of success, since votes in 2011 were higher than they have ever been, crossing the 20% average support threshold for the first time and logging five majority wins," it reported. Highlights of the ESG items it found on the annual meeting agendas of US companies include: - Sustainability reports: A wide variety of environmental issues and requests for broad sustainability reports still are the most common category, making up a little more than a third of the total. Requests for action and disclosure on climate change are being expressed more in terms of energy efficiency, while the natural resource management focus is still mainly but not exclusively on coal and hydraulic fracturing.
- Human and labour rights: Considerably fewer such proposals have been file, just seven per cent of the total, down from 12 per cent last year and 18 per cent in 2010.
- Diversity: Both on boards and for employee non-discrimination policies, has held steady with 11 per cent of the total.
Source document: The As You Sow proxy preview is an 84-page pdf file.
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