Annual General Meetings 2023: Voting recommendations for climate-conscious investors

In the context of climate crisis, it is imperative that investors seize the opportunity of the 2023 proxy season to take action and scale up their engagement initiatives with the most carbon-emitting companies. To do so, shareholders can use a large range of tools, including voting at annual general meetings. Voting is a crucial lever for making investors’ climate-related demands heard by companies’ management and board of directors. 

At Annual General Meetings (AGMs), shareholders can express their opinion on a given company’s governance, management practices and strategy through voting on proposed resolutions. These resolutions can be dedicated to climate issues, such as Say on Climate and thematic shareholder resolutions, or they can be business-related resolutions. At a time of climate emergency, investors should seek to use this opportunity to condemn the lack of ambition or disclosure of climate strategies.

Reclaim Finance proposes a briefing to guide investors in integrating climate into their votes at 2023 AGMs.

Our voting recommendations include guidelines on how to vote for:

• Say on Climate resolutions, which are resolutions proposed by a company’s management to the agenda of an AGM to obtain shareholders’ opinion on the climate strategy or its implementation;
• Climate-related shareholder resolutions, which are resolutions filed by shareholders to ask for increased disclosure or ambition on a company’s climate strategy;

• Routine resolutions (re-appointment of directors, approval of remuneration, approval of financial statements, renewal of auditors), which are ordinary resolutions about the company’s governance and strategy that should integrate the strategic topic of climate change.

We also provide examples of written questions that can be asked by shareholders to companies in the energy, utility and financial sectors.