AMERICAS - US Poll Prompts Investor Focus on Political Spending

A guide to the ICCR’s 2024 proposals read that members are concerned that the risks of corporate political activity are heightened in the run-up to the national election. [...] According to the US SIF Foundation’s 2022 report on US sustainable investing trends, shareholders filed 288 proposals on corporate political spending and lobbying between 2020 and the first half of 2022. [...] “When ESG goals and company lobbying are incongruent, it shows a lack of commitment to achieving their stated goals and can lead to a lack of trust.” ICCR members are challenging some investee firms to implement the Erb Principles for Corporate Political Responsibility and the CPA-Zicklin Model Code of Conduct for Corporate Political Spending. [...] Other frameworks focused on the issue of lobbying include the Global Standards on Responsible Climate Lobbying and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Principles for Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying. [...] Hands are tied The issue of corporate political spending is more prevalent in the US since the Supreme Court decreed in 2010 that political spending falls under free speech, meaning that any limitations to this corporate practice would violate the First Amendment.