Awards and Testimonials

Awards

As You Sow has won several awards for our decades-spanning work in shareholder advocacy and corporate social responsibility.

Business Ethics Network honored As You Sow and Responsible Sourcing Network with two BENNY Awards in 2013.

  • 3rd place Populist BENNY: After a decade-long campaign creating shareholder and consumer pressure, Whole Foods announced this past March that they will require GMO labels on all products sold in their stores by 2018.
  • 2nd place Populist Path to Victory: After five years of economic and diplomatic pressure from the Responsible Sourcing Network, the Uzbek government is no longer forcing children aged 7-11 from cotton harvesting for the first time in decades.

Business Ethics Network honored three As You Sow initiatives at its 2010 BENNY Awards. The coal ash initiative won 2nd place in the Path to Victory category, for exceptionally well-supported shareholder resolutions with coal utilities on disclosing risk mitigation and clean up policies. The beverage container recycling initiative and greenhouse gas reduction vote at IDACORP, the first ever majority vote for an environmental resolution, were nominated as well.

California Stewardship Bow and Arrow Award for Coalition Building 2010, sponsored by the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), recognized our extensive engagement of the three largest U.S. beverage companies, leading each to commit to at least a 50% recycling rate as a catalyst to reverse the declining national bottle/can recycling rate.

Business Ethics Network recognized As You Sow’s polyvinyl chloride (PVC) program in 2007 and 2008 for successful engagement with industry giants such as Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Hasbro, which led to commitments to phase out PVC from their product lines.

NGO Activist Award was bestowed on Senior Program Manager Michael Passoff by the Climate Change Business Journal in recognition of our resolution on greenhouse gas emissions at IDACORP. The resolution received 51% support, making it the first majority vote on a climate change proposal in shareholder history.

The EthiSphere Institute listed Senior Program Manager Michael Passoff as one of the 100 ‘Most Influential People in Business Ethics’ in 2009.

The Social Investment Forum recognized Senior Vice President Conrad MacKerron in 2007 with an SRI Service Award for “outstanding contributions to the socially responsible investment community.”

Testimonials

Timothy Smith, Former President, U.S. Social Investment Forum

“To change big companies is like hitting your head against a brick wall. As You Sow keeps pressure on for the long term— their tenacity has turned companies around.”

Carl Pope, former Executive Director, Sierra Club

“As You Sow has been doing pioneering work in shareholder advocacy and environmental health for nearly two decades. Their ability to create change in corporate policy and action through dialogue, shareholder advocacy, and environmental enforcement is unparalleled.”

Mark Preisinger, Director for Shareowner Affairs, Coca-Cola

“I do believe [shareholders’ proposals] helped us get to where we are on the recycled content issue. The dialogue that we undertake with shareholders clearly helps advance agendas like this one inside our company.”

Dan Chally, Senior Director, Corporate Compliance Supplier Standards, McDonald’s Corp.

“Our relationship with As You Sow has helped strengthen our supplier social accountability program. As You Sow has provided frank and honest insight about our sourcing practices. They have helped us improve by holding McDonald’s accountable in a collaborative manner.”

Paul Pressler, CEO, Gap Inc.

“[As You Sow’s] willingness to work with us toward greater transparency has been important in the development of our [social responsibility] report.”

John Miswagon, Chief Pimicikamak Cree Nation

“I wish to thank [As You Sow] from the bottom of my heart… While we waited 25 years for this first sign of justice, we know we might have had to wait many more years if people like you had not become involved to support us… You have brought hope to my people.”

Randy Hayes, Founder, Rainforest Action Network

“Rainforest Action Network has worked closely with As You Sow since they began their pioneering work in shareholder activism on a whole host of social and environmental issues.

Their team […] is one of the most effective activist groups in the business. And they’ve had many impressive results.”

Tod Arbogast, Sustainable Business Director, Dell Inc.

“Engagement with expert stakeholder organizations like As You Sow is critical in helping Dell meet our goals to be a responsible market leader. This engagement has helped us better understand emerging corporate responsibility issues, external perceptions of our performance, and helped us develop more responsive corporate policies to address those issues.”

Medea Benjamin, Co-Founder, Global Exchange

“As You Sow is helping to slow the race to the bottom in labor standards. It was a key player in the successful shareholder effort to force Gap Inc. to publish a vendor standards report last year that for the first time applied a quantitative ranking to supplier factory performance.

As You Sow is a long-term player in pushing U.S. multinationals to enforce codes of conduct. This is a powerful response to globalization and the outsourcing of production.”

Jeffrey Hollender, former CEO, Seventh Generation

[In November 2002, Hewlett Packard decided to] “break with the industry pack and support state legislation to require PC makers to bear the cost of disposing discarded computers […] Credit for this transformation must go to the Basel Action Network, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, Greenpeace China, As You Sow, and the Calvert Group […] for putting an issue on the national and corporate radar screens that had formerly been utterly ignored.”