LTP News Sharing:
Washington, D.C. — Shareholder activists with the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP) are urging Costco shareholders to make their voices heard by voting their proxy ballots before Costco’s annual shareholder meeting on January 15. FEP specifically recommends that investors both support its greenwashing proposal and oppose Costco’s current slate of directors.
Vote FOR Proposal #4: Shareholder Proposal Regarding Greenwashing Risk Audit
FEP urges shareholders to vote FOR Proposal #4, which requests an assessment of the financial costs and risks associated with Costco’s climate commitments.
Stefan Padfield
“Shareholders deserve to know whether the company’s climate commitments expose it to litigation, regulatory penalties or reputational damage for misleading claims,” FEP Executive Director Stefan Padfield says. “Costco shareholders deserve to know what, if anything, Costco has done to calculate and assess the expected value and return on investment of its net-zero and other climate commitments.”
During Thursday’s meeting, Padfield will point out red flags in Costco’s opposition statement:
Costco cannot even bring itself to say the phrase “return on investment.” There is also some interesting accounting in Costco’s opposition statement, wherein it asserts that it “relies upon… its suppliers to meet certain reduction targets” and that the relevant “costs are incurred by suppliers and are generally not investments required by the Company itself.”
This sounds a bit like Enron accounting, with Costco likely cutting itself off from the most cost-effective suppliers but then claiming those opportunity costs would not be relevant to a report on financial risks associated with the Company’s climate commitments.
Finally, Costco spends roughly a paragraph on corporate platitudes related to the importance of sustainability but then adds that “the Company’s incremental spending in this area has been immaterial.” That may be a case study for greenwashing.
If Costco has already conducted a thorough analysis and has confirmed that its climate commitments benefit shareholders, Proposal #4 provides an opportunity for the company to substantiate the benefits it claims are inherent in those climate goals.
Vote AGAINST Proposal #1: Election of Directors
FEP also urges shareholders to vote against Costco’s slate of directors. Costco has apparently underperformed the S&P 500 by roughly 18 percentage points over the past 12 months.
Costco has also garnered a Medium Risk ranking from the 1792 Exchange due to its recurring pattern of yielding to political activism, its overt DEI agenda and its other biased policies.
According to the Exchange’s Corporate Bias Ratings:
The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. Costco occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times.
FEP urges shareholders to hold Costco leaders responsible for the company’s poor performance and risky political positions. A full list of these voting recommendations can be found on Proxy Navigator, FEP’s proxy-voting app that is available both for download and to peruse online.
About
The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, less than four percent from foundations and less than two percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 60,000 active recent contributors.
The Free Enterprise Project, the original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life, aims to push corporations to respect their fiduciary obligations and to stay out of political and social engineering. More information about its proposals and recommendations can be found in FEP’s mobile and web app, ProxyNavigator.
Contributions are tax-deductible and may be earmarked for the Free Enterprise Project.
For the latest from the Free Enterprise Project, subscribe to email updates and follow its social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, X (FEP) and X (media).
Author: The National Center
