When Costco asked investors to vote against an anti-DEI shareholder proposal at the company’s recent annual meeting last month—and won their support—it should have been a nonevent.
Such an exchange is typical in the corporate world: A small group of investors buy a tiny stake in a company and use that platform to call for a specific change, like pushing it to adopt better climate change policies or take succession planning more seriously. Their proposal then goes to a vote among all shareholders at the company’s annual meeting. Boards usually urge everyone to reject the ideas for the simple reason that companies don’t like to be told how to run their businesses.
Over the past few years, anti-DEI resolutions like the one Costco faced have become increasingly common, but their support rates are usually in the low single digits.
