Warren Wilson College to Vote Proxies With New AS YOU VOTE System
Leading liberal arts college aligns values and investing with education.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Stefanie Spear, sspear@asyousow.org, 216-387-1609
BERKELEY, CA—MAY 13, 2021—As You Sow, the nation’s leading non-profit shareholder advocacy organization, announced today that its new proxy voting service, AS YOU VOTE, in partnership with Proxy Impact, welcomes among its first subscribers, Warren Wilson College (WWC) based in Swannanoa, North Carolina.
“As You Sow has been leading progressive ESG shareholder advocacy for nearly 30 years,” said Andrew Behar, As You Sow CEO. “We have offered proxy voting guidelines to help endowments, foundations, and impact investors align their voting with their values. Warren Wilson College, a leading educational institution, is flexing its endowment's muscle as an empowered shareholder aligned with their mission.”
WWC is known for its innovative educational approach that intentionally integrates applied learning and academics within the liberal arts tradition. The college is a living laboratory for innovative land management and practices for moving toward carbon neutrality and zero waste production; providing experiential learning and professional skills development for its students in the fields of sustainable practices. In 2015, WWC’s board simultaneously committed to divest its endowment from fossil fuels, adopted a Responsible Investment Policy, and established a board ESG (environmental, social, governance) Investing Advisory Committee. Since 2015, WWC has been developing and implementing ESG investment strategies from positive and negative screens to proxy voting.
“Active endowment fund management is at the core of our responsibilities as trustees and fiduciaries,” said Anthony Rust, investment committee chair of WWC’s endowment. “From investments to shareholder advocacy we want to be dynamic leaders in all facets of managing our fund and seek to do so in a manner that is reflective of our values and best interests as an educational institution of higher learning.”
Working with the Intentional Endowments Network in 2019, the college co-filed shareholder resolutions with Boston Trust Walden, Mercy Investment Services, and Zevin Asset Management at BlackRock, Alphabet Inc, and Amazon. In 2020, the Intentional Endowment Network produced a case studycase study on WWC’s active endowment management practices.
“The earth is at a breaking point. As exemplified by ongoing climate crises, the global pandemic, and racial injustice nationwide,” said Alice DonnaSelva, senior advisor to the Intentional Endowments Network. “Solving these issues, while building the equitable future we all need, will take every tool we have in the toolbox. AS YOU VOTE makes it possible for WWC to actively promote corporate strategies that reduce carbon and advance racial justice through proxy voting, a tool that is vastly underutilized by college endowments today. Looking forward, we hope more universities and their students increase their investor activism and continue to push companies in the direction of a more equitable future.”
AS YOU VOTE offers the full range of rules-based progressive ESG proxy voting. In addition, subscription fees directly support As You Sow’s mission-aligned, shareholder advocacy, tackling issues like climate change, racial justice, ocean plastics, industrial farming, and modern slavery. And subscribers get triple value as a portion of fees will be donated to other nonprofits working on shareholder voter education for foundations, endowments, and other impact investors.
The AS YOU VOTE slate is developed and maintained in partnership with Proxy Impact, a proxy voting firm based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles. “Shareholders now have a resource to vote their proxies in a way that supports their values,” said Proxy Impact CEO Michael Passoff. “AS YOU VOTE will provide ESG-based recommendations on all proxy ballot items including board of directors, executive compensation, and environmental and social resolutions.”
The new service is available on ProxyEdge®, Broadridge’s institutional voting platform. The platform’s neutral, open architecture allows organizations to publish their voting policies, with 14 diverse 3rd party recommendation providers already available today.
For more information, visit AsYouVote.org.
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As You Sow is a nonprofit organization that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies. See our resolutions here.
Warren Wilson College is a liberal arts college grounded in social responsibility, where hard work and community are more than just words.
Intentional Endowments Network is a peer learning network that encourages and supports colleges and universities to adopt long term investment strategies that create an equitable, low carbon and regenerative society.
Proxy Impact provides ESG shareholder engagement and proxy voting services that promote sustainable and responsible business practices. Proxy Impact