Photo:maury.mccown, Creative Commons, Flickr
In the 2008 proxy voting season, 21 resolutions involving toxic chemicals have been proposed to companies. On top of that, an additional 36 companies are seeing engagements over the issue outside of the proxy voting process.

This is not surprising, considering the scares in the past few months involving toy recalls, baby bottle recalls and other product recalls. A press release issued by the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) quotes the IEHN founder, Richard Liroff:

Investors and businesses are waking up to the fact today that the risks posed by unaddressed toxic chemicals and the failure to adequately address them can jeopardize a company’s bottom line and long-term wealth of investors.

This proxy voting season, it is important to note that you do have a say in how companies behave. Some of the companies holding votes on the issue of toxic chemicals include Dow Chemical (DOW) on May 15, Mattel (MAT) on May 29 and Kroger (KR) on June 26. Avon (AVP) voted yesterday and the results are pending.

You can get more information on companies holding toxic chemicals proxy voting, as well as other proxy voting issues, in the Proxy Season Preview 2008.

Disclosure: I do not own any of the companies listed above.

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