Amazon shareholders have submitted 18 resolutions for consideration at its May 24, 2023, annual meeting — seeking to hold the company accountable in areas including the climate, workers’ rights, racial and gender equity, corporate governance, animal welfare, executive compensation, and product moderation.
The total sets a new record, topping the prior record of 15 in 2022.
Amazon’s growth over the past decade, including its central roles in cloud computing and online commerce, has made the company a lightning rod for numerous social, environmental, and political issues — expanding the focus of its annual meetings well beyond its core business and financial results.
Shareholders voted down all 15 resolutions last year. However, there were more close votes than at any other point in Amazon’s recent history. In several cases, the outcome would have been reversed if not for the presumptive votes of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, with voting power over more than 12% of the company’s outstanding stock.
Some environmental and social groups appear to have been emboldened by those close votes. This year’s proposals, for example, include a new version of a resolution seeking a report on plastic packaging materials, following up on a 2022 proposal that received nearly 50% of the shareholder vote.
Update: Amazon details its efforts to reduce single-use plastics (and packaging overall) here. “In 2021, we reduced average plastic packaging weight per shipment by over 7%, resulting in 97,222 metric tons of single-use plastic being used across our global operations network to ship orders to customers,” the company says.
Amazon’s board recommends voting against all 18 shareholder resolutions, in many cases saying the company’s existing initiatives render the proposals unnecessary. Summaries of the resolutions and the board’s responses are included in this proxy statement.
A coalition of groups, including some Amazon workers, issued an open letter in support of several of the resolutions, and plan to hold a briefing next week for resolutions on human rights, worker protections, and environmental justice.
Amazon’s meeting will be held virtually again this year, at 9 a.m. Pacific on Wednesday, May 24. The company’s proxy statement was released Thursday in conjunction with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s annual letter to shareholders.
