CINCINNATI — Procter & Gamble Co. said all of its 14 board nominees received “strong shareholder support” at its Oct. 10 annual meeting , despite opposition from descendants of the company’s founders.
One week later, the vote tally is in. Four directors targeted for a "no vote" campaign by descendants received a combined 212 million fewer 'yes' votes than they did last year.
"These results signal clear and striking dissatisfaction with how P&G’s leadership is doing in preventing forest degradation and deforestation in its supply chains," said Shelley Vinyard, boreal corporate campaign manager for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“We’re not going away and this issue is not going away, regardless of how shareholders vote,” said Jim Epstein, a fifth-generation descendant of P&G co-founder James Gamble.
Epstein was among 39 descendants who asked shareholders to vote against four P&G board nominees, including CEO Jon Moeller. They argued the company hasn’t done enough to respond to a 2020 vote in which 67% of shareholders called on P&G to “increase the scale, pace, and rigor of its efforts to eliminate deforestation and forest degradation from its supply chains.”
The WCPO 9 I-Team detailed the family’s concerns in a three-part series in July. In a series of SEC filings since Sept. 8, the descendants and the company traded barbs with each other, each side citing the I-Team’s coverage to support their claims.
Before the election, the director of shareholder advocacy at Green Century Capital Management told the I-Team that shareholder support below 90% could increase pressure on P&G to revamp its supply chain.
Based on that barometer, the Oct. 10 board election was a mixed bag for both sides. While CEO Jon Moeller received nearly 20 million fewer votes than last year, he still enjoyed 90.6% support from shareholders - down from 91.4% from last year.
Lead Director Joe Jimenez declined from 96.6% to 91.8%
Angela Braly, chair of the board’s governance and public responsibility committee, declined from 91.5% to 89.9%.
P&G’s longest-serving board member, Patricia Woertz, declined from 90.3% to 87.7%.
“If we had a PR agency, an advertising agency, put out full-page ads, whatever the campaign might be, I think we’d get the vote more on our side. And that scorecard would improve,” said Chris Matthews, a fifth-generation descendant of P&G co-founder William Procter. “But for what we are, we’re making progress. We know we’re making progress because we know we have their attention.”
Matthews said P&G scheduled a meeting between family members and sustainability executives on Oct. 11, but the meeting wasn't as productive as family members hoped. P&G declined to participate in an interview about the family’s ongoing activism, but released a statement:
“It's important for people to know that although we do not own or manage forests, our commitments and actions related to forestry are among the most rigorous in our industry. Today, for every tree we use in our paper products, at least two are regrown. Our progress has been recognized by leading, independent monitors of how companies uphold their commitments to sustainability, including the Carbon Disclosure Project. We also continue to partner with leading organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council and the Arbor Day Foundation on efforts towards responsible forestry management.”
