As You Sow, a non-profit in shareholder advocacy and Tulipshare, a UK-based activist retail investment platform, recently announced a partnership “to empower retail investors globally to use their shareholder power in support of resolutions on climate, racial justice, and other pressing issues this proxy season.”
Tulipshare enables retail investors “to vote for As You Sow shareholder resolutions at companies including Amazon, Facebook, Exxon, and McDonald’s.”
The partnership with the investment platform will “allow As You Sow to access the power of retail investors to amplify calls for change this proxy season.”
This represents “the first time a shareholder advocacy non-profit has partnered with a fintech platform to empower retail investors proxy vote globally.”
The rise in investors looking “to invest in ESG reached new heights in 2021.”
Yet, despite a desire to invest their money for good, ordinary retail investors “are not fully leveraging the power they have as shareholders to vote to bring positive change to corporate action.”
This partnership seeks “to help close that gap by allowing retail investors to advocate that companies reduce their impact on people and planet, while reducing material risk for investors.”
Current engagements, which include calling for Google to report on policies and practices to reduce climate-related risk and Meta (Facebook) to improve its governance of harmful content, are designed “to move corporations to reduce risk in their policies and practices from the inside out.”
Until now, investing for shareholder advocacy “has largely been in the domain of large institutions.”
In 2020, individual investors’ votes “represented only 28% of total shares voted during the proxy season.”
The same report “shows that institutional investors’ votes are increasing year over year, whilst retail investors’ votes have held steady.”
Tulipshare’s platform — which brings together individual investors to unify their voice — is designed “to increase voting overall and will allow retail investors to add their voice to As You Sow’s engagements.”
In the 2022 proxy season, As You Sow “submitted 90 resolutions to advocate for meaningful change at companies including Phillips66, Chubb Insurance, and Amazon on environmental and social issues.”
Of those, 60% of the resolutions “reached agreements prior to the AGM, and were withdrawn when the company agreed to terms.”
The others “went on to earn six majority votes including a 92% vote at Boeing and a 43% average vote overall.”
As of this week, As You Sow resolutions “have garnered shareholder votes worth more than $1 trillion in market value.”
Tulipshare also “has six active campaigns of their own live on their site.”
Antoine Argouges, CEO and Founder of Tulipshare commented:
“As You Sow has been one of the most proficient shareholder activists over the years, yet their work is not as widely known to retail investors as it should be. We understand the amount of work that goes into developing and filing strong shareholder proposals and are looking forward to scaling our operations with As You Sow to activate the retail sector. Ordinary investors will finally have access to a platform that enables them to demand companies take responsibility for their impact on the people and planet.”
Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow commented:
“Partnering with Tulipshare enables us to reach beyond just institutions and engage on a grassroots level at a global scale. The power of individual shareholders to move their companies to create long-term value and reduce negative impact is enormous. I’m excited to work with the team at Tulipshare to bring this new voice to the table.”
As noted in the update, Tulipshare is “an activist investment platform that empowers retail investors to invest their money to promote ethical change.”
Tulipshare “enables retail investors to join activist campaigns to influence the corporate governance of publicly traded companies.”
While activist investing isn’t new, it can “require heavy capital investment and often excludes the retail shareholder — often leaving it up to institutional investors to decide how publicly traded companies conduct their business.”
Through Tulipshare, individual investors “have the potential to have a say in the way public companies are conducting their business in a way that was previously not possible.”
As You Sow is the shareholder advocacy nonprofit, “with a 30-year track record promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility and advancing values-aligned investing.”
Its issue areas “include climate change, ocean plastics, pesticides, racial justice, workplace diversity, and executive compensation.”