Target 10.2: Social, economic, and political inclusion of all
By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Economic inclusion runs through hiring, pay, credit and product design, all of which are corporate conduct at listed employers, banks and platforms. If those firms pursued inclusion as a core objective and stopped funding trade associations that resist anti-discrimination or wage rules, discrimination in formal labor and credit markets would fall. Shareholder votes already reach this conduct, with Majority Action reporting average support for racial equity audit proposals of 44 percent in 2022 and six majorities. Wage floors are the second lever, backed by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility's living-wage investor statement with more than 125 signatories. Political inclusion, citizenship, disability rights and the informal economy are outside corporate reach and depend on law and civic institutions. Almost 58 percent of the world's workers sit in that informal economy. Owners remove a necessary obstacle in the formal economy, while governments must deliver the legal and political half.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
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
- Equity in the Boardroom: How Asset Manager Voting Shaped Corporate Action on Racial Justice in 2022, Majority Action, 2023
- Living Wage, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2025 (page current; McDonald's item dated 2025-09-24)
- Decent Work Reality Check: Informality Across the World of Work, ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2025
3 campaigns on record
Asked Walmart's board to commission an independent, third-party racial equity audit analyzing the company's impact on Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities and employees, with the results made public and improvements recommended. Related investor materials tied this to workers' difficulty advancing into management.
Result: Sources give slightly different figures for the same vote. Sourcing Journal, via Yahoo Finance, reports 18.1% of votes cast in favor. Majority Action reports 18.2% of all shares voted, and 42% of shares voted by shareholders independent of the Walton family. The 0.1 percentage point difference may reflect rounding or a different vote-count base. The proposal did not pass. Filed under SEC Rule 14a-8.
We found no documented racial equity audit completed by Walmart in response to this vote. Refiled versions of the same ask failed in 2024 and 2025, drawing 15.4% and 6.9% support respectively per the Sourcing Journal account, which indicates the audit had not been carried out.
Walmart faces racial equity audit shareholder proposal, Governance Intelligence
Asked the company to address housekeeping starting wages cited at $12.00/hour against a benchmark $20.40/hour living wage, alongside racial-representation gaps in leadership and a large CEO-to-median-worker pay ratio (cited at 346 to 1).
Result: Vote percentage not confirmed in the sources retrieved for this research. Filed under SEC Rule 14a-8.
we found no documented change confirmed in the sources retrieved.
Cost Externalization: A Bad Trade for Diversified Shareholders, Proxy Preview
Asked Amazon's board for an independent examination of the company's policies, practices and products on civil rights, equity, diversity and inclusion, including pay and advancement and the disparate racial impacts on hourly warehouse workers, and how those affect the business.
Result: Sources give slightly different figures for the same vote. The Comptroller's office reports 44.18% support, which it described as a record level of support for an environmental or social shareholder proposal at Amazon at that time. ICCR reports 44% of total shares voted and 55% of independent shareholders' shares in favor. The proposal was refiled for the 2022 proxy season and then withdrawn before that vote.
Amazon agreed to commission an independent racial equity audit led by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. We found no documented publication of the completed audit's findings and no other resulting policy change that sources attribute to this vote.
Shareholders' ESG Proposals Make Significant Gains at Amazon, ICCR
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 UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.