Target 15.7: End poaching and trafficking of protected species
Take urgent action to end poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna and address both demand and supply of illegal wildlife products
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Poaching and trafficking are combated primarily by law enforcement, but demand and supply now run through online marketplaces and logistics companies. The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online had removed or blocked more than 3 million listings for endangered and threatened species by March 2020. The coalition spans 34 companies. Members include Alibaba, eBay, Etsy and Facebook, along with Google, Microsoft and Tencent. It was convened by WWF, TRAFFIC and IFAW. Financial firms are engaged too. Thirty founding financial institutions signed United for Wildlife's Mansion House Declaration in 2018, committing to share intelligence with law enforcement and train staff to detect trafficking finance. Owners of platform, payments, bank and shipping company shares can press for stronger detection and enforcement policies, though no shareholder resolution specifically on wildlife trafficking is on record. Enforcement carries the outcome, so 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
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. Consistent with the rationale, no shareholder resolution specifically on wildlife trafficking was located. The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online and United for Wildlife's Mansion House Declaration are company and financial institution commitments convened by conservation groups, not action taken through share ownership, so neither is recorded. The nearest ownership action found was an As You Sow resolution at Merck on horseshoe crab derived endotoxin testing, which concerns a legal harvest rather than trafficking in protected species, so it is not recorded here.
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.