At Ctserve Fiduciary, active ownership goes beyond just voting proxies at a company’s annual meeting—it means raising issues that we see as important to the company’s long term sustainability and profitability. We do this by engaging companies in dialogue. If companies are unresponsive or unwilling to address an important concern, we can file a shareholder resolution. Resolutions are voted on by all company shareholders at its annual meeting and serve as an important barometer of shareholder interest and perspective. We often find that filing a resolution is enough to bring an otherwise unresponsive company to the dialogue table—and if a company is willing to change and we can reach a compromise, we withdraw the resolution. We see withdrawals as wins because it means the company has committed to forward movement. We maximize our impact by joining up with other like-minded investors through networks like the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) and Ceres.

We raise a variety of issues with the companies we hold across environmental, social, and governance categories. Recent examples include methane reduction, food waste, lobbying, and human rights in the supply chain.

In 2020-2021 proxy season, we engaged 47 companies on 20 different issues. We dialogued with 29 companies, filed resolutions with 20, and were able to withdraw 4 of those resolutions after reaching agreement with the companies. Our robust active ownership is more fully described in our Stewardship and Engagement Policy.