Shareholder advocacy, also known as active ownership, covers a wide spectrum of tactics used by investors to influence the companies they own on questions of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Levels of advocacy can range from proxy voting in favor of shareholder-sponsored resolutions to direct engagement of management in investor dialogues; the intensity of engagement depends on the priorities and resources of the investor. What is implicit in this work, however, is an acknowledgement of the responsibility that comes with stock ownership to ensure that management is doing what it can to improve its performance both financially and in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures. Visit ICCR’s website (www.iccr.org) for more information on shareholder advocacy.
