Shareholder report available

The 2016 Annual Report of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR), a subcommittee of the President and Fellows, is now available on the Shareholder Responsibility Committees’ website.

The report provides a detailed description of the CCSR’s actions on shareholder proposals regarding issues of social responsibility that came to vote during the 2016 spring proxy voting season (the period between March and June when most publicly traded corporations hold annual meetings). This year, the committees considered 77 proposals dealing with issues of social responsibility that were addressed to corporations whose securities were owned directly by Harvard.

Issues raised through the proxy process this year included corporate political contributions and lobbying; corporate charitable contributions; executive compensation; equal employment; internet policies regarding privacy and neutrality; and corporate environmental practices on a wide range of issues, from company efforts to address global warming to risks from hydraulic fracturing, and from board-level environmental expertise to deforestation and the palm oil supply chain.

New topics addressed in 2016 included government service “golden parachutes” for financial services executives, safe drug disposal policy, and military sales to Israel.

The CCSR receives advice from the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility, a 12-member committee made up of Harvard faculty, students, and alumni.