While Strive believes in sound corporate governance practices, such as regular board oversight and risk mitigation practices, in the world of shareholder proposals, the “G” in ESG is not always as innocuous as proponents claim.
In past years, activists mainly pushed for more disclosures to ensure racial and gender balancing of corporate boards. This past season, however, Strive observed a stark drop in such proposals, likely because the goal has already been largely achieved.
Now, activists have turned their attention to using “G” proposals to push environmental and social goals beyond the composition of the board itself.
In many cases, activists have targeted governance mechanisms and seemingly routine procedural rules—from board disclosures to lowering the threshold required to call a special meeting—to pave the way for environmental and social action.
Because we oppose ESG activism, we also oppose efforts to manipulate corporate governance processes to enable such activism. Below are our views on some of the major “G” issues to provide a sense of the breadth of proposals we encountered and the way we think about them.
