Arjuna Capital

05/29/2024

“If you’re thinking about mis and dis-information and the impact of that, it’s a loss of trust in institutions. And we need our democracy and society to be running efficiently and well in order to have a functioning economy.” Today Meta held their annual meeting where Arjuna Capital's proposal asking Meta to report on Generative Artificial Intelligence Misinformation and Disinformation Risks received significant support from independent investors.


Natasha Lamb ,
Michael Connor , Open MIC

Unconstrained generative AI is a danger to our society, to our democracy and to the companies developing and deploying it.We urge shareholders to vote FOR Pr...

03/12/2024

Today is Equal Pay Day – So how do the largest US companies stack up on pay equity? Arjuna Capital, along with Proxy Impact and DiversIQ, have released the seventh annual Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard, capturing a 12-fold increase in the number of companies disclosing pay gap data since 2016. Spoiler - Target and Starbucks topped this year’s list, both earning an “A+”!

Watch Natasha Lamb, Chief Investment Officer at Arjuna Capital, on CNBC Money Movers as she discusses this year's pay equity results.


Annual Scorecard 2024: https://bit.ly/3Th15UG

Interview: https://cnb.cx/49OI9DR

Natasha Lamb, Arjuna Capital CIO, joins 'Money Movers' to discuss how the company collects its data for its racial and gender pay scorecard, whether pay equality measures are a function of how many senior positions are held by diverse candidates, and more.

10/02/2023

Arjuna Capital, a social impact investment firm, puts out a scorecard each year assessing companies’ commitments to gender and racial pay equity and transparency. This year, Google’s parent company Alphabet earned an F. In 2016, Arjuna began filing shareholder proposals to get the company to release pay equity data. “Google at that time was a case study in what not to do when it came to gender equity,” says managing partner Natasha Lamb. She says the company finally began releasing some limited data in 2018, but has since stopped doing even that. -- via WIRED
https://www.wired.com/story/exec-google-trial-sexist-pay-discrimination/

Google Cloud director Ulku Rowe says she was underpaid by hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s set to be the first case to reach trial since an employee revolt led Google to drop forced arbitration.

08/31/2023

"The fact is that the standard of disclosure has changed, and Nike is no longer being fully transparent," said Natasha Lamb, chief investment officer for Arjuna. via Reuters on MSN News
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Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services recommended on Wednesday that Nike investors vote for a resolution calling on the company to disclose more data on pay equity for female and minority employees.

Massachusetts-based investment adviser Arjuna Capital, a regular submitter of shareholder resolutions, filed the proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late July.

Click the link below to read the full article.

By Katherine Masters NEW YORK (Reuters) - Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services recommended on Wednesday that Nike investors vote for a resolution calling on the company to disclose more data on pay equity for female and minority employees. Massachusetts-based investment adviser Arj...

08/28/2023

With questions about defamation liability for AI-generated content still unresolved and Chat GPT already under investigations by European and Canadian data protection authorities, shareholders are concerned that Microsoft may be exposing itself to significant litigation and regulatory risk.

06/23/2023

51% of shareholders approve report on pay equity at leading U.S. grocery chain

"A majority of Kroger Co. investors on Thursday approved a shareholder resolution calling for the supermarket giant to produce a report on racial and gender pay equity for its hundreds of thousands of employees.

Arjuna Capital, the investment management firm that led the filing of the proposal, expressed concern Thursday that Kroger Chief Executive Rodney McMullen did not commit to responding to the requests submitted in the proposal at the annual general meeting. Instead, he reiterated the board’s reasons for opposing the resolution, including that the company has been performing an annual pay-equity analysis since 2016, and that many Kroger employees are covered by collective-bargaining agreements. Arjuna said more than 30% of Kroger employees are not covered by such agreements." via MarketWatch




Natasha Lamb Julia Cedarholm

A shareholder resolution calling for more transparency on pay got 51% of the vote at Kroger's annual general meeting.

06/14/2023

" Capital argued for the proposals at tech companies like Meta and Alphabet because they are huge arbiters of data. Shareholders for both companies voted down measures that would have required them to assess and minimize how much abortion-related customer data is shared with law enforcement.

Arjuna, however, did succeed in securing new data protection practices at CVS. Negotiations concerning its proposal led the healthcare company to agree to expand privacy protections around consumer health data.

“While the proposals have not garnered majority support thus far, the more important outcome is to get companies and investors considering how restricting reproductive freedoms carries inherent business risk,” Arjuna managing partner Natasha Lamb said.

Lamb said she is not giving up.

"Unfortunately, the business risks from restricting reproductive freedoms are not going away anytime soon," she said, "and we expect more momentum on this issue heading into the next proxy season." via Yahoo




Clicked here to read the full article:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/most-investors-dont-want-to-know-more-about-abortion-risks-that-companies-face-140018897.html?guccounter=1

03/14/2023

Today Arjuna Capital and Proxy Impact released their 6th annual “Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard” to mark . Of 68 companies examined, 13 – Target, Starbucks, Mastercard, Microsoft, Pfizer, Bank of New York Mellon, Citi, Adobe, American Express, Visa, Lowe's Home Improvement, Best Buy, and The Home Depot – receive an “A,” while twenty-five companies receive an “F.” Target is the 1st company in the history of the Scorecard to earn a perfect score—A+.

The grades are based on quantitative disclosures (versus qualitative assurances). The 68 companies in the ranking have all been engaged by investors through shareholder proposals and asked to improve their pay equity disclosures.

Natasha Lamb, managing partner of investment management firm Arjuna Capital, said: “Target’s score of A+ is really something to celebrate this Equal Pay Day. Racial and gender pay gaps are structural and persistent, but the Scorecard holds up those companies that are doing the real and honest work to create pay equity.”

“Women and people of color are almost always deeply underrepresented in higher paying positions,” said Michael Passoff, CEO at shareholder advocacy firm Proxy Impact. “Median pay gap data sheds a light on that problem, and studies show that companies that disclose pay gaps are more likely to fix them.”
Read the 2023 Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard here:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5bc65db67d0c9102cca54b74/t/640f22770d7c0634287c57c3/1678713464204/Racial+and+Gender+Pay+Scorecard+2023.pdfArjuna





Natasha Lamb, Julia Cedarholm - Arjuna Capital
Michael Passoff - Proxy Impact

03/14/2023

Today is . Its date differs every year and is dependent upon how far into the new year women must keep working just to earn what their male counterparts earned in the previous calendar year, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity.

With that in mind, Arjuna Capital has released its sixth annual Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard. The 2023 scorecard assigns a grade to 68 American companies based on their pay equity disclosures, grading them across five categories, which are:
Racial Pay Gap
Gender Pay Gap
UK Pay Gap
Coverage
Commitment

The good news? For the first time in the scorecard’s history, one company received an “A+” rating: Target. The bad news? Twenty-five companies—over a third of the list—received an “F” rating. Here’s how the top and bottom companies rate based on which industry the company falls into.

Visit the link below for the full Fast Company article.




Natasha Lamb, Julia Cedarholm
Michael Passoff, Proxy Impact

For Equal Pay Day, Arjuna Capital released its 2023 Racial and Gender Pay Scorecard. Target, Microsoft, Mastercard, and Pfizer topped their industries.

03/08/2023

The lives of women around the globe and throughout history have been lives led with courage, bravery, creativity, joy and hope. They are the lives of women raising the next generation while innovating across industries and nurturing communities. Despite progress and advances, inequity and injustice remains. International Women's Day brings attention to the remarkable as well as the everyday lives of women everywhere as they fight for equity, reproductive health rights and gender justice.

Arjuna Capital continues to prioritize engagement in the fight for equality through shareholder activism. Filing proposals on racial and gender pay equity, reproductive health rights, human and civil rights, sexual harassment and setting a higher bar for board diversity continue to bring attention to critical issues that affect the health, livelihood and wellbeing of women and their families. We aim to invest in the world we want to live in - a world that prioritizes environmental sustainability, healthy vibrant communities, and economic opportunity for all.

Shareholder resolutions requesting US firms disclose the pay gap between white male employees and women and ethnic minorities is on the up.

02/10/2023

Is common-sense regulation the only way to clean up social media? Managing partner, Natasha Lamb, joins Bloomberg Technology to make the case why.

Arjuna Capital Managing Partner and Co-Founder Natasha Lamb joins Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow to discuss the need for Twitter and other social media platforms need common-sense regulation. (Source: Bloomberg)

01/20/2023

COSTCO Shareholders Reject Reproductive Rights Proposal

There have been a flurry of shareholder actions pressing blue-chip companies to respond to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling in June, which overturned Roe v Wade. Lowe’s Companies Inc. and Walmart faced such proposals, which secured 32.2% and 12.9% of shareholder votes, respectively, last summer.

At [this weeks'] meeting, Julia Cedarholm, a senior associate at Arjuna Capital, noted that new risks have arisen because “the legal environment post-Dobbs is profoundly different.”

Cedarholm said Costco should “proactively work to protect its female workforce” in states where abortion restrictions have been imposed. She highlighted that studies show women who cannot access abortion are more likely to leave the workforce.

“Employers, as well as employees, bear the cost of restricted access to reproductive health care,” the proposal said.

“Today’s vote shines a light on a new risk to investors—the risk that reproductive health restrictions will negatively impact companies’ workforces,” said Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital.

Costco said in its proxy statement: “We will continue to monitor developments so that we remain responsive to their concerns.” The company decline to comment on the vote.

Proposal sought disclosure on risks of restricting reproductive rights A series of companies have faced similar proposals By Clara Hudson, January 19, 2023 Costco Wholesale Corp. shareholders voted against a proposal on Thursday seeking more information on the risks reproductive right