The 2024 Proxy Season in 3 Charts
Now that the 2024 proxy-voting season is over, it’s time to zoom out, look at the major trends for the proxy-voting year that just ended, and assess what they could mean for the future. Most US asset managers have still yet to publish their voting records for the 2024 proxy year (which closed on June 30). […]
Lindsey Stewart is Director of Investment Stewardship Research at Morningstar, Inc. This post is based on his Morningstar memorandum.
Now that the 2024 proxy-voting season is over, it’s time to zoom out, look at the major trends for the proxy-voting year that just ended, and assess what they could mean for the future. Most US asset managers have still yet to publish their voting records for the 2024 proxy year (which closed on June 30).
But even with the data still rolling in, we’re already able to identify some key marketwide themes among environmental, social, and governance topics. We’ve picked out three. We’ll follow up with a deeper dive into hidden trends. (If you’d like to see Morningstar’s coverage of proxy season, read this.)
- ESG shareholder resolutions are still growing in number, but for the first time, the growth is primarily driven by “anti-ESG” proponents. Overall support for ESG proposals stayed flat in 2024 at 23%.
- Resolutions seeking to bolster shareholder rights were popular, leading to a rebound in support for governance-focused proposals, from 30% in the 2023 proxy year to 35% this year. The decline in shareholder support for environmental and social resolutions continued in 2024, but it appears to be slowing. Average support for environmental and social resolutions fell to 16% this year from 19% in the 2023 proxy year.
