2026 Proxy Preview reports far fewer ESG resolutions

The 2026 Proxy Preview report was released last week, detailing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) shareholder resolutions which have been filed with public companies this year. Such resolutions have traditionally been a core component of ESG activism, and their purpose is generally to pressure corporations into taking actions that are aligned with the left-of-center sociopolitical objectives of those activists.

The Proxy Preview is an annual report that is jointly produced by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit As You Sow and the ESG consulting firm Proxy Impact. In 2024, As You Sow reported total revenues of $4.15 million. Funders which made six-figure grants to As You Sow in their respective fiscal years ending in 2024 included the Ford Foundation ($325,000), the Sunrise Project ($250,000), the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund ($162,200), the Park Foundation ($150,000), the Flora L. Thornton Foundation ($100,000), Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors ($100,000), and the Wallace Global Fund ($100,000).

Major Trends

Continuing a trend that was evident in 2025—and in keeping with an ongoing backlash against ESG more broadly—there was a steep decline in the number of activist resolutions profiled in the report. The 2026 Proxy Preview recorded just 184 resolutions that had been filed as of the report’s March 17 cutoff. This was down markedly from 355 as of February 2025 and 527 as of February 2024. Significant categorical drops from years past were also evident: the 2026 report detailed just 39 climate change resolutions, while in 2023 that number was 122. Similarly, there were just 15 workplace diversity resolutions in 2026, while the 2021 Proxy Preview (reflecting the aftermath of the previous year’s Black Lives Matter protests) recorded 69 of them.

The Proxy Preview attributed this falloff in part to recent changes in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proxy review process, but it also claimed that “the landscape is shifting from voting on proxies at annual general meetings to direct private engagement” with ESG activists. Additionally, the report noted a relatively higher rate of withdrawn resolutions, which can be the product of negotiations with companies. The introductory letter to this year’s Proxy Preview acknowledged that “many shareholders are feeling a chill,” but argued that it represented “a period of turbulence” while ESG shareholder activists act “as the midwives of [a] transformation” from “a Milton Friedman model of extraction to a Joseph Stiglitz vision of a regenerative, inclusive [economic] system.”

Major Proponents

A total of 114 different companies were listed in the 2026 Proxy Preview’s index as having received at least one ESG shareholder resolution. Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Meta (Facebook) received the most with five each, while Home Depot, PepsiCo, and Walmart each received four. Though approximately 40 different proponents were identified as having filed at least one shareholder resolution, a disproportionate share of the 152 individually listed resolutions were filed by just a handful of them. As You Sow, Chevedden Corporate Governance, Amalgamated Bank, and Green Century Capital Management together accounted for over half of all resolutions profiled in the report.

In addition to publishing the Proxy Preview, As You Sow was also the report’s most prolific proponent. It was listed as either the sole filer or a co-filer of 34 different resolutions—more than 22 percent of the total. Even so, this undercounts the group’s influence. As You Sow also helped file resolutions on behalf of other proponents, and on its website the group lists a total of 48 resolutions on which it “represents investors” in 2026.

Though As You Sow submitted a handful of “racial equity audit” proposals, asking Coca-Cola, PulteGroup, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Royal Gold to publicly report on their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, most of the group’s resolutions were focused on the environmental prong of ESG. For example, a resolution filed with Berkshire Hathaway requested a public report “disclosing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Company’s underwriting and insuring activities.” A resolution filed with Adobe asked for a report “disclosing if and how the Company is protecting retirement plan beneficiaries…from increased future portfolio risk created by present-day investments in high-carbon companies.” A pair of resolutions at Home Depot and Lowe’s asked the retailers to report on how they could reduce their use of plastic packaging.

One notable resolution submitted by As You Sow to Wells Fargo claimed that since banks might supposedly “be held accountable for their contributions to climate-related damages,” the company should issue a public report “that evaluates and describes the range of climate-related litigation risks associated with its financing of high-carbon activities.” Wells Fargo responded, quite reasonably, that it already evaluates litigation risks as a matter of course, and that such a report “would not yield useful information to our shareholders, and could instead increase risks for Wells Fargo without providing value to the Company or our shareholders.” Indeed, it is hard to imagine it benefiting anyone other than those who might seek to sue the bank (and by extension, its shareholders) on ideologically-motivated grounds.

The publicly traded financial institution Amalgamated Bank was listed as a proponent of 10 resolutions in the 2026 Proxy Preview, which appear to have been filed by As You Sow on the bank’s behalf. About 38 percent of Amalgamated Bank’s equity is owned by Workers United—a labor union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—and this is reflected in the bank’s ESG priorities. Amalgamated filed a pair of resolutions at Kroger and SkyWest designed to bolster employee unionization efforts by asking those companies to publicly report on their alignment with the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

Approximately 15 percent of the resolutions listed in the Proxy Preview (24 total) were filed by “corporate gadfly” John Chevedden. Each dealt with corporate political or lobbying expenditure disclosures. An example is the resolution submitted by Chevedden at Huntington Ingalls Industries, requesting an annual report on the company’s election-related spending. The proposal argued that absent such a report, “directors and shareholders cannot sufficiently assess whether our company’s election-related spending aligns with or conflicts with its policies on climate change and sustainability and other areas of concern.”

Finally, the ESG-focused investment firm Green Century Capital Management had 12 resolutions listed in the 2026 Proxy Preview. Examples include a resolution at Harley-Davidson requesting “a climate transition plan, above and beyond existing disclosure, describing if and how the company intends to achieve its climate-related goals,” and a resolution at Verizon requesting a board report describing “whether and how Verizon is bringing operational and supply chain emissions into alignment with its existing climate-related goals.”

Artificial Intelligence and Other Topics

Some other resolutions worth noting:

A union-affiliated ESG shareholder activist organization called SOC Investment Group filed resolutions at Alphabet (Google), Amazon and Walmart, requesting details regarding how the Trump Administration’s immigration policies were impacting their operations. A similar resolution filed at Tyson Foods by the Sisters of St. Francis Charitable Trust garnered 3 percent of the vote at the company’s February annual meeting, according to the Proxy Preview.

The 2026 Proxy Preview included a category for artificial intelligence (AI) shareholder resolutions, and anticipated that this topic would be an area of increasing interest for activists going forward. The report slotted this category under the “social” prong of ESG, although AI resolutions also involve environmental and governance issues. One example is a resolution filed at Walmart by the activist group United for Respect, asking the company to report on how it will “address and measure the social implications on its workforce of the growing adoption of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and automation.”

Multiple shareholder resolutions dealt with emissions from electricity generation to power new data centers. Amazon received a resolution from Mercy Investment Services, asking for a report on how the company planned to meet the “climate change-related commitments it has made on greenhouse gas emissions, given the massively growing energy demand from artificial intelligence and data centers that Amazon is planning to build.” Nearly identical resolutions were filed at Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook) by Trillium Asset Management and the Presbyterian Church USA/As You Sow, respectively.

Finally, NVIDIA received a remarkable resolution from an activist group called Open MIC, asking the company to explain its “strategic rationale for engaging in military sales and contracts,” including with respect to AI. Among other things, the proposal claimed that “these relationships may expose the company to reputational risks, particularly in regions where military activities are controversial or subject to heightened scrutiny.” It is difficult to imagine a better illustration of the ultimate purpose of ESG activism—advancing ideological objectives on divisive sociopolitical issues, instead of creating value for shareholders—than a resolution asking the largest company in the world to explain why it seeks to sell its products to customers.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/2026-proxy-preview-reports-far-fewer-esg-resolutions/