Governance & Sustainability Center Newsletters

Proxy Voting Weekly Digest - Week Ended May 31, 2024

June 11, 2024

In its highly anticipated annual shareholder meeting, ExxonMobil’s board won a vote of confidence. Despite a vote-no campaign against several directors, notably CEO and chair Darren Woods and lead independent director Jay Hooley, all of Exxon's directors were reelected. The campaign was launched by various shareholders over Exxon’s lawsuit against the proponents of a climate-related shareholder proposal. Exxon's directors received 95% average support, with the lowest support for an individual director (Hooley) still high at 87%. Exxon’s say-on-pay proposal also fared well (92%) and none of the four shareholder proposals that went to a vote came close to passing.

As far as shareholder proposals go, those on governance topics continue to receive high levels of average support (40% as of May 31, 2024, in the Russell 3000, versus 29% during the same time in 2023), while support for environmental and social (E&S) proposals remains slightly below the levels observed in 2023 (17% thus far in 2024, versus 19% in 2023). When excluding such proposals from conservative groups (“anti-ESG proposals”), support for E&S proposals averages 21% in 2024 (versus 22% in 2023).