Shareholder resolutions seeking greater action by companies to reduce plastic use or promote more circular packaging frequently fail to pass. Corporate social responsibility, and shareholder advocacy nonprofit As You Sow is still forging ahead with those annual efforts despite headwinds.

“Our strategy is really the same,” said Kelly McBee, circular economy manager at As You Sow. McBee noted these issues remain of great importance, particularly as nations negotiate a global plastics agreement and U.S. jurisdictions consider more packaging legislation. Companies are largely aware of these issues, she said. As You Sow seeks to work with them by assessing a company’s progress, potential next steps or aspects where a company may be falling short on breadth or speed of action.

The outlook isn’t getting rosier. “I think this is a really difficult year for shareholder resolutions,” McBee said. “I think there's a lot of backlash around the idea of ESG investments,” and the group is seeing lower votes on resolutions than in previous years, she said.

McBee said As You Sow identifies companies to target using the research-based scorecard it issues showing “who the leaders and the laggards are.” Its most recent version came out in 2021 and its next is due out in the coming months, McBee said. As You Sow looked at which companies have publicly endorsed EPR, through a trade association or their own reporting, as well as which have made public donations to support U.S. recycling infrastructure.

In documents released ahead of annual meetings, companies typically discourage shareholders from voting for such measures, often pointing to related sustainability actions that are already in progress or that they’re planning to take. As You Sow seeks to influence investors through the proxy memos it produces.

Last year, nearly all of As You Sow’s consumer packaging resolutions failed to advance.

To date, As You Sow’s resolutions tracker shows nine resolutions focused on consumer packaging in 2024, some of which were reintroduced after last year, at Altria, Amazon, Constellation Brands, Hormel, Keurig Dr Pepper, Restaurant Brands International, Hershey, Tyson and Yum.

The resolution at Hershey is new, focusing in part on EPR. “[Hershey] cites insufficient recycling infrastructure as a barrier to setting new packaging sustainability targets, yet fails to acknowledge and act on its responsibility to improve recycling systems as other companies have done,” the resolution states.

While Amazon is a repeat target, this year’s resolution is a shift from last year’s. As You Sow is now focusing on the recyclability of Amazon’s packaging in practice and at scale, McBee said.

As You Sow has already withdrawn its 2024 Hormel resolution after the food processing company recently committed to cutting its packaging use by 10 million pounds by 2030, forming an industry working group to advance circular packaging policy and issuing a report in 2024 detailing opportunities for the company to take additional circularity action. As You Sow said these commitments are indicative of “growing action by companies towards extended producer responsibility.”

“In the case of Hormel, the company was very eager to take new action on this issue, and I think our proposal helped elevate conversations that were already happening internally,” McBee said. A Hormel spokesperson said the company had no additional comment.

Another organization active in seeking corporate action against plastic pollution is Green Century Funds, which describes itself as an environmentally responsible mutual fund. It recently announced it helped secure plastics-related wins at Choice Hotels International, Disney and Hasbro.

Choice Hotels confirmed that this year it will be piloting a program in certain locations to measure and reduce single-use plastics. “We hope to use these learnings to identify additional improvement opportunities that can be scaled across the portfolio,” according to a spokesperson.

The spokesperson also highlighted Choice’s work to make bulk amenities standard across most Choice domestic brands by the end of 2025. It is currently carrying out that rollout, which it says is resulting in an 85% reduction in plastic waste. Its bulk amenities bottles are made entirely of recyclable materials, the spokesperson said.

According to Green Century Fund press releases, Hasbro agreed to fully disclose its plastic packaging use in 2024, and Disney agreed to disclose “how much plastic it’s using in certain areas of its business and to set an additional plastic reduction goal.” Hasbro and Disney could not be reached for comment.