Shareholder initiatives have been a big tool for environmental groups working to push public companies to improve their sustainability. These proxy fights have been used to push fast food restaurants to reduce the use of straws and plastic stirrers and called for global beverage companies to emphasize reusable packaging over single-use plastics.
Advocacy group As You Sow claimed at least partial credit for Amazon's 2023 announcement it would pivot away from plastic mailers.
But corporate leaders are pushing back.
In January, ExxonMobil sued the shareholder groups Follow This and Arjuna Capital over its proposal calling for the company to cut back more on its greenhouse gas emissions. Karin Rives of S&P Global writes that the company wants the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to decide if it can exclude some shareholder resolutions.
The decision to move forward with a suit came even as the groups said they would withdraw their proposal, with ExxonMobil telling S&P there are "still important issues for the court to resolve."
The company has support from other firms that have been targeted in proxy battles along with the National Association of Manufacturers, which says federal Securities and Exchange Commission officials have failed to intervene.
"The proxy process has been increasingly hijacked by politically motivated activists," Charles Crain, vice president of domestic economic policy at NAM, told our sister paper Pensions & Investments.
But Andrew Logan of nonprofit group Ceres told P&I that if activists are stopped from proxy battles, then they will find another way to be heard.