CalPERS depends on healthy returns from the companies it invests in to help pay member pensions — about 55 cents of each dollar spent on pensions is sourced from investment earnings.
As a steward of our members’ money and a shareholder in publicly held companies worldwide, CalPERS has a duty and a right to ensure that corporate leaders are doing their best to generate strong returns. Our status as an investor in these companies gives us an important tool to influence decision-making and demand accountability — the shareholder vote, also known as a proxy vote.
CalPERS recently published its 2024 Proxy Season Wrap-Up Report (PDF), which highlights important votes we cast at shareholder meetings and other voting statistics in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
In that proxy season, CalPERS voted for shareholder proposals that seek to mitigate risk to our multibillion-dollar portfolio. The proposals call on executives to improve transparency on a company’s susceptibility to climate change or its compliance with human rights standards.
As the report notes, we voted in more than 33,000 board elections on issues related to board independence, shareholder rights, and executive compensation.
These votes often lead to productive discussions with corporate leadership and improved performance.
For additional information on our proxy voting approach and vote results, refer to our Governance & Sustainability Principles (PDF) and Proxy Voting Guidelines (PDF) as well as our website.