SEC Throws Proxy Season Into Chaos With Policy Shift on ESG Bids

Investors are scrambling to ensure their environmental and social proposals still make it on corporate ballots this proxy season, after the SEC moved faster than anticipated to make it easier for companies to jettison such bids.

The change in policy is sure to disrupt the 2025 proxy season, when shareholder activists file proposals to be considered at annual meetings with the goal of influencing corporate behavior. Proposals focused on social or environmental issues like greenhouse gas reduction goals proliferated under President Joe Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shareholder groups had expected to have one more proxy season with Biden-era rules ...