5 Charts on Asset Manager Support for Sustainability Resolutions

It’s been a bumpy ride for sustainability-focused investors over the last year or so. 

This year’s proxy season is getting into full swing against the backdrop of continued geopolitical and economic volatility— demanding answers to some tricky questions about what to prioritize in sustainable investing.  

And that’s all coming on top of reduced communication between investors and companies on environmental and social matters, prompted by abrupt changes in the policy landscape. 

The latest Morningstar research paper on asset manager proxy voting takes a close look at how US and European asset managers are voting on sustainability resolutions backed by a significant proportion of independent shareholders. 

Source: Morningstar proxy-voting database, Morningstar research. Data as of March 31, 2026. Note: Proxy years are 12-month periods ended June 30. Adjusted support includes voting decisions by independent shareholders only

As Stewardship Snapshots noted late last year, the population of those significant resolutions grew very thin in the 2025 proxy year. 

We found only 30 sustainability resolutions in the US in the year to June 2025 with the support of at least 30% of independent shareholders, compared with over 100 in each of the five previous years. 

These significant resolutions are a useful guide to the sustainability topics that institutional investors view as material, and where they’re prepared to use the proxy-voting process to request greater transparency. So, the shrinking number of significant resolutions creates an information gap when it comes to assessing what those topics are.  

Still, we can observe some useful trends from the data we have on asset managers’ voting decisions on these resolutions.

What’s inside:

• The drivers behind the steep drop in significant sustainability resolutions within the US market.

• A detailed comparison showing the widening gap between US and European asset manager support for environmental and social proposals.

• Key voting trends impacting major sectors, including targeted resolutions at Big Tech companies and climate transition plans.

Looking at the 255 significant resolutions in the last three proxy years, we see a largely stable average of around 40% support from independent shareholders based on the mean of voting results, shown on the chart below.  

Source: Morningstar proxy-voting database, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar research, asset manager disclosures. Data as of March 31, 2026. Data shown is for proxy years ended June 30.

Support for these resolutions by 18 European asset managers over the period stood consistently above 90%, while the average support by 20 US asset managers dropped from 42% in the 2023 proxy year to 35% in 2024, and 31% in 2025. 

In our opinion, the gap is a manifestation of fundamental differences in perceptions of materiality and fiduciary duty between US and European investors. It’s also prompting several European asset owners to seek arrangements where voting and engagement practices related to environmental and social issues reflect their own high intentions—whether that’s through new stewardship tools on offer from asset managers, or by reassigning mandates. 

But geographic gaps are not the only ones we’ve observed when it comes to support for significant resolutions on sustainability. 

Source: Morningstar proxy-voting database, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar research, asset manager disclosures. Data as of March 31, 2026. Data shown is for proxy years ended June 30.

Of the 20 US managers in our study, six supported more than 60% of the significant resolutions they voted on and seven supported less than 20%. 

There’s much less dispersion among the European asset managers: Over the three-year period, 14 of them displayed support above the mean of 93%, with only Norges Bank and Baillie Gifford coming in below the average by a meaningful amount.

Source: Morningstar proxy-voting database, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar research, asset manager disclosures. Data as of March 31, 2026. Data shown is for proxy years ended June 30.

Source: Morningstar proxy-voting database, Morningstar Direct, Morningstar research, asset manager disclosures. Data as of March 31, 2026. Data shown is for proxy years ended June 30.

We think the greater scrutiny on sustainability-related stewardship applied to the larger firms in recent years could be a key factor explaining this difference, although there will certainly be other influences at play here. 

It’s also noteworthy that US sustainable funds’ average support for the same resolutions remained more stable over the three-year period compared with any of the other US asset manager groups, which sustainability-focused investors may find somewhat reassuring. However, US sustainable funds’ average support for significant resolutions remained around 20 percentage points lower than the equivalent figure for the European managers over the period. 

Overall, the wide range of approaches to proxy voting on sustainability is an indication of a fragmenting landscape for sustainable investing practices. 

And that means that asset owners and other asset management clients are having to work that bit harder to maintain alignment between their sustainable investing objectives and implementation.