While Sunday’s 75th annual Tony Awards show will recognize excellence on the Great White Way this past year, many of the best theatrical performances these days can be found far off-Broadway at company headquarters and annual shareholder meetings. All the corporate world is now a stage for environmental-social-governance (or ESG) activists seeking to publicly shame oil and gas companies and financial institutions into decarbonizing and redirecting capital toward favored green projects.

April, May and June are the cruelest months for corporate management teams as they spend the annual reporting and shareholder meeting season fending off growing demands for ESG policy commitments — chief among them getting to net-zero emissions and aligning with the climate targets the Paris agreement set.

Since most climate-related proxy fights have thus far failed, ESG advocates are increasingly resorting to theatrical demonstrations aimed at disrupting annual meetings and normal business operations. Acting out and acting up in public corporate settings is meant to embarrass and send a message to ESG laggards about their lack of action on climate and other progressive policy fronts.

Read the full New York Post article.
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Paul Tice is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at NYU Stern.