4 min read
6 Charts on Sustainability and Governance Proxy-Voting Trends in 2026
Shareholder support stabilizes for a shrinking pool of governance and sustainability proposals.
The 2026 proxy year, which ended in June, had originally shown signs of imminent change for sustainability and governance proposals. The latest figures show that, in the end, it was a much less eventful affair.
The SEC ended calendar-year 2025 by announcing it would no longer opine on the suitability of shareholder proposals to appear on corporate proxy ballots. Meanwhile, asset managers, including J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo, opted to reduce their reliance on proxy advisors, after a December 2025 White House executive order targeted what it called the advisors’ “substantial power to advance and prioritize radical politically-motivated agendas.”
Although the scene was set for a large shake-up in voting outcomes in 2026, analysis shows that the main impact of the recent changes was primarily on the number of voted shareholder resolutions—not so much on underlying shareholder support.
Population of Voted Proposals Continues to Shrink
We’ve taken an initial read of 2026 proxy year data shown on the chart below (which due to data lag captures most but not quite all of the 2026 proxy year). Following the recent changes, it looks like the number of voted shareholder resolutions addressing governance and sustainability topics at US companies has roughly halved in the last two proxy years.
Source: Morningstar, SEC EDGAR, Georgeson, Freshfields. Data as of June 24, 2026. Note: Charts show data for proxy years ended June 30.
The 331 such proposals voted in the 2026 proxy year (according to data available as of mid-June) is 34% fewer than the previous year and 49% below the 2024 proxy year total.
But that’s not the only key change.
There’s a growing proportion of resolutions within that smaller cohort filed by anti-ESG proponents—conservative political activists who oppose or express scepticism on whether sustainability considerations should be a feature of financial and business decision-making.
In the 2026 proxy year, 21% of voted shareholder resolutions were by anti-ESG filers, noticeably above the with a five-year average of 14%.
Resolutions by these proponents generally attract very weak support from shareholders (average support: 2.2% in the 2026 proxy year). As a result, their increasing share of a smaller population of resolutions has the effect of pulling down headline average support for shareholder proposals.
Average support for sustainability and governance proposals fell from 22.6% in the 2026 proxy year, compared with 24.8% in 2025. However, average support for conventional resolutions—excluding those by anti-ESG filers—remained steady at 28.0% over the same period.
Steady Support for Governance-Focused Proposals
Proposals addressing governance matters comprised the majority of US shareholder resolutions for the second proxy year running in 2026, as the chart below shows.
Source: Morningstar, SEC EDGAR, Georgeson, Freshfields. Data as of June 24, 2026. Note: Charts show data for proxy years ended June 30.
However, the number of voted governance resolutions still fell by 30% in the 2026 proxy year, to 184.
Support for governance resolutions by anti-ESG filers increased slightly to 4.3% in 2026, as several of this year’s resolutions focused on more conventional governance matters like separation of Chair and CEO roles and voting procedures for director elections.
Source: Morningstar, SEC EDGAR, Georgeson, Freshfields. Data as of June 24, 2026. Note: Charts show data for proxy years ended June 30.
Still, as shown on the chart above, the higher proportion of these relatively poorly supported votes pulled down average support for governance proposals slightly below 30% in 2026. If we exclude them, average support for governance resolution appears to have remained steady at around 35% for the last three proxy years.
Slide in Support for Sustainability Stops
For the second year running, there has been a sharper decline in the number of voted sustainability resolutions than governance resolutions.
The number of shareholder proposals addressing environmental and social themes fell 39% to 147 in the 2026 proxy year, as shown on the chart below. And average support for these proposals fell from 14.3% in 2025 to 11.8% in 2026.
Source: Morningstar, SEC EDGAR, Georgeson, Freshfields. Data as of June 24, 2026. Note: Charts show data for proxy years ended June 30.
One third of the sustainability-focused resolutions were filed by anti-ESG proponents, but average support for those proposals fell to just 1.2%. In turn, this pulled down the overall average support for sustainability resolutions to 11.8% in the 2026 proxy year from 12.8% in 2025.
Excluding anti-ESG resolutions, average support for sustainability proposals actually increased slightly in 2026 from 16.8% to 18.0%. But it’s worth noting that the increase is based on a particularly thin population of less than 100 resolutions in 2026, compared with over 300 just two years earlier.
We observe a similar effect when we split environmental and social resolutions on the two charts below: Falling overall average support but rising support for conventional resolutions, with a rapidly shrinking population of voted proposals.
Source: Morningstar, SEC EDGAR, Georgeson, Freshfields. Data as of June 24, 2026. Note: Charts show data for proxy years ended June 30.
Source: Morningstar, SEC EDGAR, Georgeson, Freshfields. Data as of June 24, 2026. Note: Charts show data for proxy years ended June 30.
As we’ve highlighted before, that thin population makes it much harder for institutional investors focused on long-term material risks to assess what the market perceives to be important.
