Do shareholder ESG resolutions make a difference?

Exxon is in the news today for taking the unusual step of asking a court to step in to stop the company’s own shareholders from forcing a vote on climate-related proposals at the next shareholder meeting.

So called “activist investors” have been around for decades, pushing for major changes to company management or strategy. Or, more recently, for ESG goals — environmental, social and governance.

But as we’ve previously reported, there’s a growing wave of pushback against those efforts.

Even when activist investors do get their votes on efforts to improve environment, social or governance targets at big corporations, it doesn’t always make much of a difference, said Kai Liekefett who works on shareholder activism at law firm Sidley Austin.

“For the most part, activists have been not very successful in getting shareholders to approve resolutions to disclose emissions, or any other focused on ESG topics,” said Liekefett.

And that has been the case even before politics turned ESG into the latest cultural fight. But a failed vote, say, for a report on gender equity or emissions, doesn’t always mean complete failure, said Nick Mazing, director of research at market intelligence firm AlphaSense.

“Very often what happens is even if a shareholder proposal is defeated by the shareholders, very often what you see is that the company will still issue the report maybe in the following year, and so on,” said Mazing.

The Conference Board found that shareholder proposals pushing for changes related to ESG have risen sharply and are likely to continue. But lawyer Elizabeth Gonzalez-Sussman says companies and shareholders are paying much more attention to whether proposals will save or make money. She’s vice chair of the shareholder activist practice at law firm Olshan Frome Wolosky.

“I think these ESG elements, when tied to the financial bottom line, tend to still resonate, even in a climate where you may have a lot of pushback on ESG,” said Gonzalez-Sussman.

 Which is exactly the climate we are in.