NYSE Top 5 - NZBA to vote on ending membership structure, Vanguard continues 0% support for E&S proposals
Week ending August 29, 2025
Editor’s note - our pre-Labor Day editions usually feature a few twists given the slower news week; for this year it’s “my tween daughter is guest editing.” Let’s see if she takes this the way I’m expecting…
Hi everyone. I’m taking over this edition from my dad and turning it into a celebration of the music from K-Pop Demon Hunters, which I’m sure your kids can’t stop singing either. Oh and dad also has some sustainability stuff here or something.
Sing along with all your favorite songs at the links below, and dad wants me to remind you that K-pop songs are mostly two minutes long.
-Brian Matt, CFA, Head of Sustainability Advisory, NYSE
1 - Vanguard support for E&S SH proposals remains at zero in 2025; Big 3 cleave stewardship teams
Along with its finished N-PX filings, Vanguard published this summary of the voting period covered by the same reports (July 2024-June 2025). You’ll see case studies describing the stewardship team’s thinking, but jump straight to Page 12 for what we think is the headline - Vanguard supported zero out of 261 environmental / social proposals in the above season, repeating last year’s approach, though voting for 31% of governance-related shareholder proposals (and 89% of management governance proposals).
Along the same lines, everything in this Wachtell update on stewardship has been covered in prior Top 5s, but it’s a good central reminder that all of the Big 3 will have multiple stewardship teams representing them as of sometime next year. BlackRock and State Street moved forward with the Strategy of standing up separate programs earlier in 2025, and the expected split of Vanguard into Vanguard Capital Management and Vanguard Portfolio Management sometime in 2026. (Case in point: BlackRock’s letter to both red and blue state financial officers from this week states that “politicization of pension fund management ultimately costs savers and retirees.”)
Also, this is a good reminder as you look at your 2025 N-PX reports that complete this week; for these three, voting programs will likely look very different next season.
2 - NZBA will hold vote to cease operations and convert to a framework initiative
If you’re feeling a bit of déjà vu from the headline, yes, you’ll find the progression somewhat similar to the path of its sister insurance organization; after a number of high-profile departures over the last 12 months, the Net Zero Banking Alliance announced it would Takedown its activities and vote on changing format away from a membership-based organization in September. Subsequent to the announcement, Responsible Investor (subs req’d, here) quoted a number of prior signatories as remaining committed to their climate goals (including ING, Commerzbank, Amalgamated Bank, Itau Unibanco, and Bradesco), and numerous other banks that have exited recently have made similar statements. Suffice it to say, you may need to do a bit more work going forward to evaluate the climate approach of any of your bank counterparties, instead of simply relying on the “NZBA member” checkbox.
3 - Int’l maritime, plastics agreements slow with US opposition
Held over from last week as we didn’t have enough Free space, we wanted to make sure we included the slowdown in progress on two international initiatives:
-US administration officials announced opposition to the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) net zero framework, which was expected to reach an adoption vote in October. Deeper dive in Sustainable Views here.
-Global plastics treaty discussions in Geneva broke down on August 15, leaving the potential for adoption of an agreement in December in doubt. BBC has additional detail here, including US opposition to any agreement that would include production caps (Reuters detail here).
Companies generally tell us that supplier/customer negotiations are the vector for the above issues affecting their businesses (and the delivery method for their Soda Pop); in absence of international agreements, we always recommend to watch for statements from trade groups that represent large buyers in each industry for the potential path of travel.
4 - Ever.green highlights possible changes to Scope 2 in GHG Protocol update
We mentioned the vote results to move forward with specific pathways by the GHG Protocol Technical Working Group in Top 5 #193, but we haven’t seen a comprehensive discussion of what possible changes including hourly-matching and grid-matching might mean for how companies approach clean energy until these two pieces from Ever.green. The Q&A attached to the firm’s recent webinar (here) is an excellent wrap of what’s in the proposals. Then, there are arguments on both sides of the debate around moving to more granular procurement of clean energy; for hourly matching, this Ever.green piece walks through How It’s Done with some of the common concerns, but we’ll also mention this week’s release from UK-based Matched Energy of a methodology that rates UK energy by green claims along with other supporters of the updates. GHG Protocol plans a survey with draft revised text early this fall - if you’re currently a clean energy buyer, it’s worth keeping an eye out and potentially making your voice heard. The Golden copy of the standard is expected to be adopted in 2027.
5 - CBRE survey measures value of office sustainability features (and impact of RTO)
Going in a different direction than usual for this week’s thinkpiece; with so many of our sustainability teams integrating with facilities strategy to produce their GHG inventories, the choice of the office around you is an important part of your sustainability approach. For those looking to quantify the value other businesses place on sustainability in negotiating with potential office landlords, this CBRE study shows What it Sounds Like: 26% see sustainability features as “need to haves”, while another 43% note that they would impact rent negotiations (Ctrl-F for “Figure 20”). Those in our audience with facilities responsibilities will Love, Maybe, the benchmarks for average and peak facilities utilization (Figure 6) and expectations for office footprint size (Figure 14) as companies pursue return-to-office strategies.
Editor’s note: Guess there’s two topics in the tween girl world this week. See you after Labor Day.