KOHL'S CORPORATION | Corporate financial sustainability report at KOHL'S CORPORATION

Status
5.72% votes in favour
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
5
Resolution details
Company ticker
KSS
Lead filer
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Governance
ESG sub-theme
  • Corporate purpose
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Consumer Discretionary
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors create a board committee on corporate financial sustainability to oversee and review the impact of the Company’s policy positions, advocacy, partnerships and charitable giving on social and political matters, and the effect of those actions on the Company’s financial sustainability. The Company should issue a public report on the committee’s findings by the end of 2024.
Whereas clause
WHEREAS: The Company’s policy positions, advocacy, partnerships and charitable giving on significant social policy and political matters should not alienate consumers, decrease sales, or diminish shareholder value. The Company takes public and politically divisive positions over issues of significant social policy concern, including generating a backlash for “funding an organization that promotes child mutilation”1 and “indoctrinate[ing] babies into LGBTQ culture with ‘Happy Pride’ onesies.” According to 1792 Exchange, which has given Kohl’s a “high risk” rating for taking controversial positions on ideological issues, the Company does not protect employees based on viewpoint and even “fired an employee after they opposed a ‘racial equity’ clothing line (Kohl’s apparently settled the subsequent lawsuit in 2021). The Company also has a 100 percent rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) “Corporate Equality Index.”5 Earning that score arguably requires spending shareholder assets to embrace highly partisan positions on hot-button issues, such as supporting legislation that eliminates religious liberties and discriminates against girls and women while opposing legislation to protect children from adult materials. In his 2021 book The Dictatorship of Woke Capital, Stephen Soukup describes HRC as “influencing businesses by employing a ‘soothsayer’s trick’” that boils down to increasing the radicalization of businesses by way of a strategy to “simply keep moving the goalposts.” According to the Claremont Institute’s BLM (Black Lives Matter) Funding Database, Kohl’s has contributed $1,000,000 to the BLM movement and related causes since 2020.7 These causes have been accused of squandering assets8 and supporting racism and antisemitism and highly divisive and dangerous programs such as police-defunding and “anti-racist” racial discrimination. The Company has also donated $100,000 to the Trevor Project,10 an organization that supports “gender affirming care”11 that critics have argued translates into advocating for dangerous puberty blockers and genital mutilation for children.12 Trevor Project has also been accused of facilitating the hiding of gender confusion problems from parents.
Supporting statement
SUPPORTING STATEMENT: Recent events have made clear that company bottom-lines, and therefore value to shareholders, drop when companies take overtly political and divisive positions that alienate consumers. Following Bud Light’s embrace of partisanship and disparagement of its customer base, its revenue fell roughly 10 percent.14 Target Corporation’s market cap fell over $15 billion amid backlash for similar actions.15 And Disney stock fell 44 percent in 2022 amid its decision to put extreme partisan agendas ahead of parents’ rights.16

Lead Filer: The National Center for Public Policy Research

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