The Growing Transatlantic Rift Over Climate Plans
Companies globally were keener than ever to discuss their climate strategies at AGMs in 2022 21 December 2022
Kenza Bryan and Tamami Shimizuishi of the Financial Times covered SquareWell’s latest study on Say on Climate proposals as well as shareholder proposals related to climate change, including the first “anti-ESG” shareholder proposal filed in the US this year.
As highlighted in FT’s story titled “The Growing Transatlantic Rift Over Climate Plans”, twice as many boards put climate action plans to a shareholder vote at AGMs last year than in the previous 12 months with 46 companies including the London Stock Exchnage and France’s Engie submitting these to non-binding “Say on Climate” votes between January and November, compared with just 22 in 2021.
Scrutiny of these plans became more fierce. For the first time, top proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services recommended its global clients to vote against some climate plans, after green-lighting all the ones put forward last year.
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