Dear John,
Shareholder advocacy continues to be one of the most powerful forces for creating positive change in the corporate world and driving progress toward a sustainable future. Over the last few years, the work you’re making possible continues to garner mainstream media attention — below are some examples from the past year. | |
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| In January 2025, in response to As You Sow’s shareholder proposal on deep sea mining, leading solar technology provider First Solar agreed not to use minerals mined from the deep seabed until the
impact of this controversial mining process is found not to harm sensitive deep-sea ecosystems. The agreement underscores First Solar’s commitment to responsibly provide clean, low-priced energy to America and shows the power of global brands and nations acting together to protect critical marine resources before they are irreversibly harmed. | | | | | | |
| After years of As You Sow engagements with Amazon, asking the global marketer to reduce its massive plastic packaging problem, the company reported that it finally dropped use of plastic packaging materials from 65% of shipments in 2023 to 37% in 2024, avoiding 134 million plastic packages last year. "To have those bags pretty much eliminated is great progress, and shows responsiveness by the company to the global problem of our oceans ending up as
a dumping ground for plastic waste," said Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president of the nonprofit group As You Sow. | | | | | | |
| Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow, believes that the rhetoric we’ve seen in the press about certain corporate retreats from diversity and equity programs obscures a far larger truth: “Most companies are actually holding strong on their diversity programs.” Based on his conversations with CEOs Behar says that, “The vast majority of CEOs, when they look at the data about the benefits of creating a diverse workforce, come to the conclusion that greater diversity leads to financial outperformance.” |
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Stand with us against the campaign to silence shareholder voices
In September, ExxonMobil launched a scheme offering to lock in its retail shareholders to a pro-management vote indefinitely, even though this is contrary to current Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) proxy rules, a concern we raised in a letter to the SEC. In a press release Exxon cited As You Sow’s As You Vote proxy voting guidelines to rationalize this power grab. Shareholder participation and accountability are more critical now than ever and the need to protect investor rights has never been
more urgent, which is why As You Sow is formally challenging this dangerous new program at the SEC. | | | | | | |
| Catastrophic climate-related weather events are destroying homes at record rates, creating a national insurance crisis. Insurance companies are raising policy rates so quickly that homeowners are being priced out of the insurance market while insurance companies are simply refusing to write policies in climate impacted markets where catastrophic damage costs outweigh premiums. Given this insurability crisis, shareholder advocate As You Sow asked the obvious question of Travelers Insurance, whose homeowner line makes up nearly 50% of its business: how
can you remain profitable if increasing numbers of homeowners are priced out of the insurance market and there are fewer areas in which you can profitably insure properties? Investors have the right to know how durable an insurance company’s customer base is, given a quickly warming planet. | | | | | | | | The report evaluates 20 food corporations on their programs and policies related to regenerative agriculture. The report found that while the companies advertise the use of regenerative agriculture practices, most are not living up to the actual standards, including reducing or avoiding pesticides that kill soil organisms, a prerequisite for healthy soil and resiliency. | | | | | | | | ExxonMobil is rolling out a new system to automatically and indefinitely lock in retail shareholders to a pro-management
vote at the company’s annual meeting, a move that could guarantee management control at the expense of long-term investors and stakeholders impacted by the company. Investor groups that have challenged Exxon in the past cried foul about the new system. Danielle Fugere, As You Sow’s chief counsel, has raised concerns that the new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair approved this policy within hours of its submission, even though the policy violates the SEC’s rules prohibiting proxy solicitations seeking votes beyond a single annual meeting. The As You Sow legal team submitted a letter to the Chair raising this concern. | | | | | | | | Your support is the reason why shareholder advocacy has grown to become the powerful force it is today, making big changes at the world’s largest companies, and earning the high-profile media attention these issues deserve. |
| | | All of this work is funded by a small community of like-minded individuals, and today your support can go further than ever as we confront a growing movement to stifle shareholder voices, the freedom to invest, and progress in general. Please ensure this work continues in 2026 with a gift
today — you’re the reason we can weather the forces aligning against us. | | | |
Andrew Behar
CEO, As You Sow | | | | As You Sow is the nation’s leading shareholder representative, with a 30+ year track record promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility and advancing values-aligned investing. Its issue areas include climate change, ocean plastics, toxins in the food system, biodiversity loss,
racial injustice, and lack of workplace diversity. See As You Sow’s shareholder resolution tracker. | | | As You Sow
11461 San Pablo Avenue, Suite 400
El Cerrito, CA
94530 | | | | DISCLAIMER: As You Sow is not an investment advisor, nor do we provide financial planning, legal or tax advice. The content of our programming, publications and presentations is provided for informational and educational purposes
only, and should not be considered as information sufficient upon which to base any decisions on investing, purchases, sales, trades, or any other investment transactions. We do not express an opinion on the future or expected value of any security or other interest and do not explicitly or implicitly recommend or suggest an investment strategy of any kind.
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