What's Happening

By Mary Grace Wagner, Social Responsibility Operations Coordinator
and Mary Minette, Senior Director of Shareholder Advocacy, 
Mercy Investment Services

Faith-based investors gathered in New York City in late March 2026 for the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility’s (ICCR) biannual conference. Panels covered topics impacting shareholder advocacy and the changing federal policy landscape for shareholder proposals. 

A panel on chemical risk management included a discussion of the Portfolio Advisory Board’s (PAB) ongoing engagement with Target Corporation on pesticide use and its impact on biodiversity in Target Corporation’s supply chain.

A panel about engagement with the critical minerals sector included panelists who spoke about engagements with mining companies about the critical minerals needed to build electric vehicles. Panelists also spoke of the plans to engage automakers, including General Motors and Ford, about the human rights implications of their battery supply chains.

Member-led panels included a presentation from Ben Cohen, founder of the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream brand, about his battle to retain the brand’s social activist profile after its former parent company, Unilever, spun its ice cream business off to a new company, Magnum. The session also included an opportunity to enjoy ice cream!

Shareholders also discussed the rapidly growing gap between CEO and worker pay. In recent years, the average CEO of large U.S. companies has made 300 times the wage of their median workers. 

In a panel discussion, the ICCR Advancing Worker Justice Working Group on Excessive Executive Compensation previewed their new executive pay guidelines. The guidelines were released, together with an investor statement signed by the PAB, calling on investors to strengthen their oversight of executive pay by reviewing their proxy voting practices and guidelines on excessive compensation and engaging with companies.

And finally, industry experts gave an overview of the various federal policy changes that have created obstacles for investor proposals and actions. This included changes by the SEC in how shareholder proposal challenges by companies are treated, actions to block small shareholders from accessing the public SEC database to promote their shareholder proposals, and a number of state laws that could impact how investors can vote their proxies when they disagree with management’s recommended vote.  

A panel of experts also discussed how ICCR members and others have responded to these new restrictions, including by filing successful lawsuits against companies to get their proposals on the proxy ballot. Panelists also discussed the potential for further legal restrictions by the SEC to shareholder rights and pledged continued diligence in reporting to ICCR members about opportunities to respond.