Shareholder engagement: in defense of sustainable investing

We've posted many times about the practice of shareholder engagement and its value as a means of expressing faith-based beliefs, teachings and values. Most recently, FaithInvest Executive Chair Dave Zellner penned Shareholder resolutions in 2025: An essential element for faith-consistent investing, which described the evolving landscape of corporate engagement and the view that proxy voting is one of the most influential ways that investors can change corporate business policies and ensure alignment with their spiritual values and ethical principles.

Earlier this year, Programme Manager Catherine Devitt posted Shareholder engagement: a tool for influencing corporate behaviour for a better world, about our first quarter FCI Forum, where we focused on shareholder engagement with special guests Tim Smith, Senior Policy Advisor at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR)—a pioneer in faith-based shareholder advocacy for over five decades—and Emily DeMasi, Lead for North America and Director of Engagement at EOS, Federated Hermes Limited, one of the world’s largest specialist stewardship teams.

The topic of shareholder engagement has taken on an even more urgent tone in recent weeks, as described by our friends at the ICCR, where Tim Smith recently put out a 'Request for Member Action' note concerning a report issued by the Business Roundtable. In the note, Tim recounts that 'We have all been watching with concern as the attacks on Sustainable Investing grow. To date, there have been actions taken against asset managers and pension funds considering ESG metrics, thinly veiled allegations of collusion by members of Congress, and attempts to hamstring proxy advisors from making recommendations in support of ESG-focused proposals'. Tim then goes on to describe a particular challenge posed by the Business Roundtable, which issued a paper, The Need for Bold Proxy Process Reforms, 'advocating drastic changes to the proxy process that would impede all but the largest investors from accessing the corporate proxy'. Faith-based asset owners who want stay abreast of these issues may want to take a look at this paper, and also the ICCR's paper Shareholder Proposals: An Essential Investor Right.

Many subscribers to the FaithInvest network are also members of the ICCR, as this organisation provides abundant support and guidance for groups seeking to become active in shareholder engagement. For those who are not familiar with their work, we highly recommend you check out their website and, of course, FaithInvest stands ready to provide you with support in all areas of your faith-consistent investing journey - just drop us a line at info@faithinvest.org.