Target 1.1: End extreme poverty everywhere
By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Almost 700 million people, 8.5 percent of humanity, live in extreme poverty, concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank identifies more and better jobs plus public investment in education and basic services as the pathway out. Governments and aid therefore sit on the critical path. Corporate conduct matters through the wages and purchasing practices of multinationals whose supply chains reach the poorest workers. Shareholder proposals at Amazon in 2024, on pay gaps, warehouse conditions and freedom of association, show the lever exists. That lever bears mainly on formal-sector workers in richer markets. We found no documented corporate lobbying obstacle acting as the blocking constraint for this target. Owners help at the margin, while governments and aid must deliver the outcome.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
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
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Runs the investor statement and member engagements urging US companies to adopt, disclose and implement a living wage policy and to work with workers, unions and franchisees to raise pay.
Coordinated the first shareholder resolution at a listed company seeking Living Wage accreditation, covering subcontracted cleaners and security staff as well as direct employees.
Shareholders file Living Wage resolution at Sainsbury's, ShareAction, 2022-03
4 campaigns on record
Report on the company's respect for freedom of association and collective bargaining.
With Shareholder Association for Research and Education
Result: not stated in source
The 2024 Amazon Proposals, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2024-05
Commission an independent audit of working conditions and the treatment of warehouse workers.
Result: not stated in source
The 2024 Amazon Proposals, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2024-05
Adopt, disclose and implement a living wage policy commitment and work with workers, unions and franchisees to increase wages.
Result: Over 125 signatories representing more than 4 trillion dollars in assets.
ICCR reports that in September 2025 shareholders commended McDonald's for committing to end subminimum wages, and that in June 2024 investors called on Walmart to address worker safety and pay equity.
Commit to paying the real Living Wage to all workers, including third-party contractors, and become an accredited Living Wage employer.
With Legal and General Investment Management, Nest
Result: 16.7 percent in favour, with a further 2.6 percent abstaining
Sainsbury's Living Wage resolution achieves significant shareholder support, ShareAction, 2022-07
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 UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.