Zevin Asset Management

About

Zevin Asset Management is a majority women-owned and 100% employee-owned firm that invests in companies with responsible business practices both for social impact and for financial reasons. Zevin leads its peer investment managers in collaborative social impact engagement and advocacy, often covering new issues with innovative strategies.



Impact Highlights

Zevin is a leader in the shareholder engagement space, frequently using targeted investor proposals to challenge companies on mismanagement and long-term ESG risks. In 2016, it filed 32 shareholder resolutions (leading 20 of them). Of those resolutions, 11 were successfully withdrawn, indicating a company made a commitment to change its practices, in response to Zevin’s advocacy. Zevin has also brought important issues to the mainstream by introducing shareholder resolutions on novel issues in recent years, including paid family leave, risks stemming from criminal background checks, the racial pay gap, and minimum wage reform.

In addition to filing shareholder resolutions, Zevin has private dialogues with around 50 companies a year regarding their social and environmental impacts. In 2017, Zevin Asset Management’s advocacy contributed to meaningful changes at Starbucks on paid family leave policy, PepsiCo on climate change risk and greenhouse gas emissions, and Apple on diversity and inclusion. Zevin also joins other investors to collaboratively engage with companies on important issues, often times leading the charge.

Moving Companies Forward on Paid Family Leave

In 2017, Zevin Asset Management wrote to more than a dozen U.S. firms whose policies are inadequate because they don’t meet the needs of modern families or they are unequal between types of parents/classes of workers.

We began productive dialogues with several companies, and we filed shareholder proposals at companies where we were concerned about a lack of progress. Shareholder proposals asking companies to consider enhancing their approaches to paid family leave were filed at Starbucks, CVS Health, Walmart Stores, and YUM! Brands.

Companies are moving in response to engagement and increasing public interest in positive worker policies. All four shareholder proposals led to progress (without going to a vote), and dialogues have also been successful.