During my recent interview with T. Rowe Price’s Donna Anderson, Donna highlighted ways that companies can seek to improve their disclosure about shareholder proposals by noting these four examples:
- Use Color – In its 2025 proxy statement, Mondelez puts the language of a shareholder proponent’s shareholder proposal in a color distinct from the rest of a proxy statement to make it very clear to the reader that that’s not the company speaking.
2. Use Links – In its 2025 proxy statement, Amazon starts its shareholder proposal section with links to all of its reports, policies and commitments related to ESG topics.
3. Highlight the Proponents – In its 2025 proxy statement, John Deere did something new this year as they took all their shareholder proposals and put them in a box and said “Here’s who the proponent is, here’s how many shares they own and here’s our topline headline reason why the board doesn’t support it.” That’s a handy reference graphic.
4. Show Impact on Bottom Line – In its 2025 proxy statement, Costco is notable for how candid their language is in response to shareholder proposals. They really lay out the reasons, including how much it would cost the business and this is why we don’t want to do it.
