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Environment
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
Whether a company runs on renewable power, how much water it withdraws and how much of its own waste it recycles is settled inside the company, which is why this rates as high as the scale goes. The three numbers behind the rating belong to the firm alone: water taken for every dollar of revenue, the recycled share of solid waste, and the renewable share of the energy it consumes. Companies with the same options choose differently. Corporate buyers in the United States contracted for a record 21.7 gigawatts of energy in 2024, bringing corporate-driven additions to the grid to 100 gigawatts since 2014, with Amazon the largest single buyer for the fifth year running, while other firms of the same size buy none. Owners have moved the waste side directly: Colgate-Palmolive and Keurig Dr Pepper agreed to publish reuse and refill baseline assessments and run new pilots after proposals from Green Century Capital Management, though Keurig Dr Pepper says that work was already under way, and Starbucks agreed to correct what it tells customers about cup recyclability and to describe its move to reusable cups. The argument that would pull this down is that some electricity markets make renewable contracts impossible, and the one source for it is a 2021 student paper, published with a disclaimer that it speaks for its author, which says market regulation restricts the feasibility of such contracts in certain regions without naming a regulator or a prohibition. That describes a harder or dearer purchase rather than a forbidden one, and a cost is not a bar. A political fight runs alongside and it is the lesser one: chemical and plastics producers including Dow and LyondellBasell, and the trade bodies their members fund, the American Chemistry Council, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Plastics Europe, argued against binding production limits at the United Nations plastics treaty talks, the chemical council counts twenty-five states persuaded to regulate advanced recycling as manufacturing, and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, whose members it says include publicly held companies, is suing Oregon and Colorado over their packaging laws, yet seven states have those laws on the books. None of that decides what a single company buys, withdraws or recycles; those three numbers are the company's own, and the company belongs to its shareholders, which is why the rating sits at the top.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- JUST Capital 2025 Ranking Methodology (as of February 3, 2025), JUST Capital
- Corporate renewable energy contracts break annual record, Trellis, reporting the Clean Energy Buyers Association 2024 Deal Tracker
- Solar, battery storage to lead new U.S. generating capacity additions in 2025, U.S. Energy Information Administration
- The Role of Corporate Renewable Power Purchase Agreements in Supporting US Wind and Solar Deployment, Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University SIPA
- Colgate-Palmolive, Keurig Dr Pepper enhancing reuse efforts, Packaging Dive
- Our Top Ten Victories from the 2025 Shareholder Advocacy Season, Green Century
- Alphabet Inc., 2026 definitive proxy statement, Proposal Number 6, and Form 8-K of 11 June 2026, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- EPR Packaging Laws Moving from Concept to Compliance, Mayer Brown
- Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors v. Ryan, No. 1:26-cv-03460 (D. Colo.), filed 30 July 2026, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, obtained through CourtListener RECAP
- With Wyoming, Half the Country Open to Advanced Recycling, American Chemistry Council
- Corporate Advocacy on the UN Global Plastics Treaty, 2025 Update, InfluenceMap
- Four Strong Shareholder Votes on Unrecyclable Flexible Packaging Highlight the 2025 Shareholder Season for Circular Economy Action, As You Sow
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Files circular-economy shareholder proposals asking consumer companies to phase out unrecyclable flexible plastic packaging, adopt reusable packaging and finance credible recycling, winning between 5.6 and 17 percent support in 2025.
6 campaigns on record
Commit to address the risks of unrecyclable flexible packaging, which accounts for 71 percent of the company's plastic packaging.
Result: 13.7 percent in favor
We found no documented change.
Phase out flexible plastic packaging, which makes up more than 18 percent of the company's plastic packaging.
Result: 15.6 percent in favor
We found no documented change.
Provide accurate recyclability information for plastic cups and disclose details on the transition to reusable cups.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
Starbucks agreed to ensure it provides accurate recyclability information and to share details about its transition to reusable cups by early 2026.
Our Top Ten Victories from the 2025 Shareholder Advocacy Season, Green Century
Publish an annual reuse/refill baseline assessment and expand reusable and refillable packaging pilots.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
Keurig Dr Pepper agreed to publish an annual reuse/refill baseline assessment in its corporate social responsibility report and to launch new reuse and refill pilots by 2024.
Colgate-Palmolive, Keurig Dr Pepper enhancing reuse efforts, Packaging Dive
Publish a baseline assessment of reuse and refill packaging pilots and disclose plans to expand them, and explore accelerating its 2030 plastic-reduction targets.
Result: withdrawn after company agreement
Colgate-Palmolive agreed to publish a reuse/refill baseline assessment in its 2023 sustainability report and to more fully disclose existing and planned reuse pilots.
Colgate-Palmolive, Keurig Dr Pepper enhancing reuse efforts, Packaging Dive
Recognize water as a financial risk and meet six corporate expectations covering water-quantity management, water-quality protection, ecosystem protection, sanitation access, board oversight, and responsible water-related public policy engagement, by 2030.
With Mercy Investment Services, other institutional investor signatories
Result: not a proxy vote; an ongoing multi-year engagement and annual benchmarking effort
Chipotle and Domino's Pizza are cited by Mercy Investment Services as companies that had already made commitments under the initiative as of 2023; Ceres publishes an annual benchmark tracking company progress.
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is JUST Capital's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.