Shareholder Activism

Shareholder activism is a powerful tool that investors such as Portfolio 21 use to positively influence corporate behavior.

We employ several shareholder activism strategies:

Company Dialogue

Portfolio 21's rigorous screening criteria seeks companies best positioned to succeed given the increasing challenges posed to business by human activities that extend beyond the earth's ecological limits. We recognize, however, that in the realm of publicly traded corporations, there are no perfect companies. Portfolio 21 engages companies when we believe they are at financial or reputational risk due to lack of attention to these issues. We work to establish productive relationships with companies so we can apply pressure and encourage improvement in social and environmental performance.
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Proxy Voting

Through active proxy voting, Portfolio 21 supports all beneficial environmental and corporate responsibility resolutions placed on the ballots of companies in the fund.
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Filing Shareholder Resolutions

Filing a resolution is a way to get management's attention when other methods have failed. We file resolutions in cases where dialogue has been unproductive or where there are opportunities to join others in solidarity on environmental sustainability issues.
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Divesting Holdings

If the above steps fail to bring about the desired change from a company, or if a company no longer meets our selection criteria, we divest. By divesting these companies we hope to send a clear signal to management regarding the importance of maintaining a focus on sustainable business strategies and improving performance in these areas on an ongoing basis.
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