As You Sow Launches “My Money My Vote” Proxy Voting for its Company 401(k)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Isaac Montes, imontes@asyousow.org, (917) 674-3510
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA—SEPTEMBER 17, 2024—As You Sow, a leading shareholder representative, in collaboration with investment advisor Carbon Collective and shareholder voting platform iconik, today announced a new program integrated into its 401(k) employer-sponsored retirement plan that enables every employee to direct fund managers how to vote proxies according to their preferences.
Named simply “My Money My Vote” (MMMV), the program can be adopted by any other organization that wants to reduce their fiduciary risk. Proxy voting for retirement plans is often perceived as complex because most plan participants are invested in mutual funds and ETFs that may hold more than 1,000 individual companies — meaning tens of thousands of voting decisions. MMMV enables employees to pick a proxy voting policy aligned with their values, so with one “set it and forget it” choice, each plan participant automatically votes on every item of every ballot, including board members, CEO pay, and shareholder resolutions addressing climate change, workplace justice, political spending, and other critical issues.
“My Money My Vote takes the risk of proxy voting out of the hands of employers and asset managers and gives the power to the people who earned the money, where it belongs,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of As You Sow. “This is the most fundamental expression of democracy – to respect the agency of each of your employees to vote their values and send a signal to the companies in their portfolio how to reduce material risk and increase long-term sustainable growth. This is where values and value align.”
Behar added, “Currently, the U.S. has a system where 100 million people with $10 trillion in assets are forced to invest in the extractive economy and are given no options on proxy voting. Their rights as share owners are handed over to asset managers that often vote the exact opposite of their client’s values. This new system empowers the people who earn the money to use their power with one-click simplicity.”
MMMV is now available to any employer that offers a retirement plan benefit, however, as a result of the partnership between Carbon Collective and iconik, clients of Carbon Collective enjoy a higher tier of voting data. On the iconik platform, plan participants are able to select from a series of pre-set voting policies spanning a range of issues, or they can create their own unique voting profile through a survey. In As You Sow’s case, its employees chose the As You Vote policy given that it aligns with the organization’s mission for responsible investing seeking a safe, just, and sustainable world for all. Once a voting policy is selected, iconik aggregates and shares the cumulative voting preferences with the respective asset managers.
“As with everything else we have built at iconik, My Money My Vote is grounded in principles of Voice and Agency. We believe that employees shouldn’t be forced to participate in a retirement system that uses their hard-earned investments in ways that contradict their preferences and values,” said iconik CEO and Co-Founder Alex Thaler. “At the same time, we recognize that most people don’t have the time or inclination to weigh in on tens of thousands of ballot items. Employees need easy options for directing how their retirement investments should be voted, along with the ability to see what’s happening under the hood when desired.”
The launch of My Money My Vote is an important first step in fully unlocking shareholder rights for savers in employer sponsored plans. Today, it enables employees to express their intent to fund managers regarding how they would like their shares to be voted; fund managers are encouraged to take these preferences into account when voting. In the future, the group plans to enable full investor-directed voting, where the fund’s stocks are directly voted to reflect the intentions of investors, according to their percentage ownership.
Carbon Collective founder, Zach Stein said, “Such a move is in the best interest of employers. We are now seeing companies being targeted in lawsuits, not because of the performance of the funds in a 401(k) program, but because of the voting strategies the fund manager adopted. Proxy voting is becoming politicized, and the best pathway forward is to help employers sidestep the controversy altogether by putting the power in the hands of the underlying asset owner.”
As You Sow CEO, Andrew Behar, concluded: “The vast majority of people are tired of giving away their power to asset managers that routinely vote against shareholder resolutions that reduce material risk and seek long-term sustainable growth. At the same time, asset managers want and need relief from the fiduciary risk associated with recent politicalization of proxy voting. We have a win-win solution that aligns the values of the retirees who earn the money with the asset managers’ interest in reducing fiduciary risk.”
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As You Sow is the nation’s leading shareholder representative, with a 30-year track record promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility and advancing values-aligned investing. Its issue areas include climate change, ocean plastics, toxins in the food system, biodiversity, racial justice, and workplace diversity. Click here to view As You Sow’s shareholder resolution tracker.
Carbon Collective is a US-based RIA that specializes in helping over 120 organizations and 800 households account for climate-related risks in their retirement plans.
iconik is the first automated, customizable proxy voting platform for employers, institutional investors, asset managers, financial advisors, and individual shareholders. The company’s groundbreaking voting engine VoteForge™ allows users to follow or create voting policies that match their values and preferences and meet the growing demand for values-aligned investing in a way that works for all investors, regardless of age, life stage, or ideological bent.
To learn more about the My Money My Vote Program, you can email: janine@iconikapp.com