
Amazon Shareholders Rejected Employees' Call to Respond to Climate Change - sdornan
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/leticiamiranda/amazon-shareholders-reject-employee-call-to-respond-to
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mushufasa
This headline is misleading.

The vast majority of shareholder resolutions fail to achieve a majority (>50%)
support. In fact, most shareholder resolutions are considered a 'success'
anytime they garner any substantial amount of vote (>10%), and the company
will usually take preemptive actions to address the issue when resolutions
reach that level[0].

One thing most people don't realize is these votes are all non-binding.
Companies have no legal obligation to do anything based on shareholder
resolutions. Essentially they're a big survey.

Companies want to serve their shareholders -- that's the whole point. If the
past is any indication, this effort will drive Amazon to substantially improve
its sustainability practices.

_____

[0] From one of my working papers:

Proposals that do not achieve majority vote can still have impact by opening
up a dialogue. Glac (2010) presents an example of a proposal asking Amoco to
adopt the Valdez environmental principles which only got 8.6% approval, but
Amoco began to shift environmental policies. A similar proposal the next year
was withdrawn because of Amoco’s policy shift. Sometimes, the media impact of
a failed vote can lead to future progress. For example, Guay et al. (2004)
argue that the media impact of a resolution filed with Talisman on operations
in Sudan led the company to withdraw a year later.

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mushufasa
If you own amazon stock and want to build support for when they re-file next
year, you can add your shares to support of this online petition:
[https://www.yourstake.org/ask/amazoncom-inc-amazon-reduce-
fo...](https://www.yourstake.org/ask/amazoncom-inc-amazon-reduce-fossil-fuel-
dependence/)

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mirimir
> In an emailed statement, Amazon outlined its sustainability initiatives and
> said, "Amazon’s sustainability team is using a science-based approach to
> develop data and strategies to ensure a rigorous approach to our
> sustainability work." The company also said, "We have a long term commitment
> to powering our global infrastructure using 100% renewable energy."

In my experience, "using a science-based approach" translates to "maximizing
shareholder value" with plausible deniability.

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AnthonyMouse
Is that supposed to be a problem?

Large data centers are strong candidates for renewable energy conversions
because they need backup power regardless. If the "backup power" is supplied
by renewables then that becomes the primary generation source and the power
grid becomes the backup. Doing it that way is sustainable _and_ profitable.

~~~
thrower123
I would be very leery of a datacenter that didn't have their own on-site
generation plants that can be guaranteed to supply power in the event of a
grid failure. If a substation goes down on a cloudy day, I would hope that
they have a big diesel generator or gas plant on standby regardless.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The solution to that is to have enough solar to generate the power you need
even on cloudy days, then sell the excess to the power company on normal days.

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ksbakan
A call which was made by bcc spamming all the internal amazon mailing lists
asking people to sign the petition.

Source: I know a guy who got spammed.

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agentofoblivion
I’ve been surprised by Amazon’s commitment to and progress in this area. I
only recently learned that half of AWS was powered by renewable energy in
2018. That might not be good enough for these people, but I was pleasantly
surprised.

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pgtruesdell
Most shareholder resolutions are total jokes that get rubber-stamped by the
large fund managers/executives and large individual shareholders who actually
vote their shares. Despite increased access, due to ubiquitous internet
access, only 27% of retail investors even bother to vote.[0] Plus, with an
increasing concentration of assets managed by a small group of giant fund
companies, this continues to become a bigger problem where the retail
investors have little to no say.

Check out the AFL-CIO Executive Paywatch [1], can you imagine retail investors
approving executive compensation to the rate of 200x or even 5900x (in the
case of Weight Watchers) median employee pay? Those executive compensation
votes usually pass without much more than a squeak from a couple of small
investors or activist fund managers who typically get trounced when it comes
time to vote.

Even if it's seemingly pointless, I always read the proposals and vote. It's
also a great way to learn and get a sense of what's going on at the companies
you are invested in.

[0] [http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2014/06/12/shareholders-dont-
vote/](http://buzz.money.cnn.com/2014/06/12/shareholders-dont-vote/)

[1] [https://aflcio.org/paywatch](https://aflcio.org/paywatch)

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ikonoklast
Time to change the shareholders

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profalseidol
Majority Shareholders are practically our Modern Feudal Lords. The only
difference is that there is a government which was paid in blood as result
from past revolutions and uprisings. A government that is also being taken
over by Modern Aristocrats.

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AnthonyMouse
Amazon doesn't have a majority shareholder. Most of these huge companies
don't. Gates doesn't own a majority of Microsoft, Page and Brin even together
don't own a majority of Google, etc. These companies are owned by everybody's
retirement fund.

It's actually becoming rather a problem because you have these gigantic
containers of wealth but there is no one captaining the ship who can do
anything bold with it, because that requires shareholder approval but the
underlying shareholders don't even know what companies they own much less have
any idea what comes up for a vote. Meanwhile the fund managers are the most
conservative people imaginable and are far more interested in stable returns
than making the world a better place, so the entities that have the resources
for moonshots don't have the stones to actually attempt them.

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rjf72
Your comment is incorrect. There are numerous types of stock. The biggest
division being preferred and common. Common entails voting rights, preferred
does not. There are also share classes. For instance Google has class A, B, C
shares. Class A are what people buy and do entail minimal voting rights. Class
B are voting shares owned primarily by the founders and carry 10x the voting
rights per share of class A. And class C are voteless shares generally
distributed to employees for compensation. Sergey Brin and Larry Page own a
minority of all outstanding Google shares (about 13%) but have majority
control of the voting power in the company. The same is true of companies such
as Facebook and Zuckerberg.

This leads to the rather interesting insight that the current direction and
actions of of Alpha/Google/YouTube etc have been ultimately under the
exclusive control of Brin and Page; similarly for Zuckerberg/Facebook. These
companies' actions give the most honest insight possible into their owners'
worldviews. Not the most comforting thought.

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burfog
Is there a price difference? Can shares be converted between classes or
between preferred and common?

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frenchy
I'm not much of a stock person, but I think in such cases, the voting shares
tend to be tightly controlled. Especially for companies like Alphabet &
Facebook, they are essentially trying to get the funding of a public company,
while still maintaining the function of a private one.

