Below are key takeaways from ISS’ recently released 2025 United States Proxy Season Review: Environmental & Social Issues. The full report is available to institutional subscribers by logging into ProxyExchange then selecting the Knowledge Center and its Library tab and to corporate subscribers by logging into Compass then selecting Governance and the Governance Library or Governance Exchange tab.
- Number of environmental and social (E&S)-related shareholder proposals filed and on ballot declined sharply. As of June 30, 2025, 482 E&S proposals were submitted to U.S. companies, about a 20 percent decrease from the 605 that had been submitted by around the same time in 2024. After withdrawals and omissions, 239 proposals got on ballot, down from 389 at the same time last year. Factors behind the drop inlcude, the current political environment, the evolving regulatory landscape, continued drop in overall shareholder support, and improved disclosures by many S&P 500 companies.
- SEC’s new Staff Legal Bulletin (SLB) 14M resulted in sharp increase of E&S shareholder proposal omissions. The new guidance has made it more difficut for proponents to avoid exclusion of proposals on E&S matters. As of June 30, 2025, a record high of 105 E&S proposals were omitted, up from 39 at about the same time last year.
- New administration’s executive orders on DEI impacted corporate disclosures of DEI initiatives. Many companies have scaled back or dismantled DEI initiatives, such as cutting back DEI hiring programs and restructuring or eliminating employee resource groups. Others have edited or removed DEI-related content from annual reports, proxy statements, and websites.
- Average support for E&S-related shareholder proposals continued to decline. Support for environmental and social proposals continued to decrease, likely driven by the prescriptive nature of some proposals, improvements in company disclosures, the rising number of so-called anti-ESG proposals with limited support, and the politicization of “ESG”. The number of majority-supported E&S proposals increased slightly in 2025 after three years of declines. There were five majority-supported E&S proposals as of June 30th, up from three the previous year. All five of these were political spending related.
- For the fourth consecutive year, a record high number of so-called “anti-ESG” shareholder proposals were filed. As of June 30th, 119 such proposals were filed and 66 made it onto ballots. The volume and types of these proposals expanded this year, but as in the past, they tended to question the value of traditional ESG considerations, and received low support levels overall.
- Among pro-E&S shareholder proposals, climate change was the most frequently proposed topic. Other frequent topics included diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), political spending, artficial intelligence, and other environmental issues, such as plastics waste and biodiversity loss.
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By:
Enver Fitch & Emma Thornberg
