Target 15.4: Conserve mountain ecosystems
By 2030, ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide benefits that are essential for sustainable development
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Mountain ecosystems are mainly protected through national parks and land-use law, but extractive companies matter. Earthworks documents SQM, Albemarle, BHP and Antofagasta Minerals operating in Andean salt flats and copper districts. There, Earthworks estimates, water and brine extraction is drawing the Atacama water table down by 1,750 to 1,950 liters per second more than inflows. That draw-down threatens high-altitude wetlands and Kolla, Atacameno, Lickanantay and Aymara livelihoods. Owners of mining and automaker shares can press for water and biodiversity safeguards in lithium and copper sourcing. Nature Action 100 investors cite mining engagements in their 2025 status report. The lever is helpful but not the critical path. Owners help at the margin.
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
Filed shareholder proposals at US grocers asking them to test whether their due diligence stops avocado sourcing linked to illegal clearing of Michoacan highland forest.
Walmart, Illegal Deforestation in Avocado Supply Chains, As You Sow, 2025-12
Coordinates investor engagement with 100 companies across eight priority sectors, including mining, on reducing nature and biodiversity impacts.
2 campaigns on record
Assess and report on the effectiveness of due diligence policies addressing deforestation in the avocado supply chain.
Result: not stated in source
Assess and report on the effectiveness of due diligence policies for supplier compliance with local law and company standards in the avocado supply chain.
Result: Withdrawn, agreement reached
As You Sow records the resolution as withdrawn following an agreement with the company.
Walmart, Illegal Deforestation in Avocado Supply Chains, As You Sow, 2025-12
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.