With Proxy Vote Communication, The Ethical Funds Company writes directly to the Chief Executive Officers of the companies it holds, explaining why Ethical Funds has voted against a management proposal or in favour of proposals filed by other active shareholders.

In its April newsletter, Ethical Funds said this enhanced communication will ensure companies understand its position and the reasons why they are seeing opposition to the votes they have recommended to shareholders.

For example, the company wrote to the CEO of TD Bank explaining why it voted in favour of a shareholder proposal calling for cumulative voting in the election of directors. Cumulative voting enables shareholders to multiply the number of shares held by the number of directors to be voted on and to cast the total for any single director or group of directors. The Ethical Funds Company believes that cumulative voting allows for the creation of boards that are more responsive to all shareholders rather than majority shareholders.

Companies will also be notified when Ethical Funds feels the company has responded responsibly to shareholder proposals. Ethical Funds recently wrote to Whole Foods Markets praising its decision to label its private label foods to indicate that they are not sourced from genetically engineered seed.

With Broadcast Shareholder Campaigns, Ethical Funds is communicating directly with large numbers of companies on key issues. For example, Ethical Funds has written to every company on the Ethical Canadian Index to encourage the adoption of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework for publishing sustainability-related corporate information. Ethical Funds also said it will be writing to all the companies that have failed to meet its baseline standards for sustainability performance, alerting them of their ineligibility status and to provide guidance on what they need to do to qualify.

For more information, visit www.ethicalfunds.com

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