Disney held its Annual Shareholder Meeting on March 20th, 2025, and we heard updates on several different areas of the company and even heard from the shareholders themselves.

Walt Disney Company Headquarters in Burbank

During the voting portion of the meeting, a few different shareholder proposals were discussed, including climate risks to retirement plan beneficiaries — and the proposal to end the company’s participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.

Several different proposals were voted on at the March 20th meeting, a few of which were put forth by the company — including electing new directors of the board and confirming executive compensation packages. But, there were additional proposals from a few shareholders at the meeting as well — that Disney’s board recommended other shareholders vote against.

©Disney | Walt Disney Company Headquarters

The first proposal came from James McRitchie ROTH IRA, represented by As You Saw, who wanted Disney to address the climate risks to its retirement plan beneficiaries. According to McRitchie, the company has “not acted to meaningfully address the emissions generated by its retirement plan investments. The plan’s most popular option by assets invested is the BlackRock LifePath series. The funds in this series account for 31% of plan assets. These funds invest heavily in high-carbon companies and companies contributing to deforestation.”

Walt Disney Company Headquarters ©LA Times

The proposal sought to have Disney publish a report disclosing if and how the company was protecting retirement plan beneficiaries from high-carbon companies.

In response, Disney stated that it did not believe “a report on this matter would be a valuable use of Company time and resources, nor enhance long-term shareholder value,” and recommended shareholders vote against it — which they did during the meeting.

Walt Disney Studios

The National Center for Public Policy Research (which describes itself as a non-partisan independent conservative think tank) also made a proposal at the meeting, requesting Disney reconsider its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). The proposal said that companies like the Human Rights Campaign “seek to sow gender confusion in children, encourage irreversible surgical procedures on confused teens, effectively eliminate girls’ and women’s sports and bathrooms, and roll back longstanding religious liberties.”

In addition, the proposal said Disney’s perfect score in the CEI was due to a “partisan, divisive, and increasingly racial” agenda and urged the company to remain “neutral” when it came to political matters. In its proxy statement, Disney said the proposal was unnecessary and that it didn’t “believe this proposal would provide additional value to shareholders.”

Pride wall photo op by Tiffins and the DVC kiosk

In a statement to USA Today, Stefan Padfield, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, said:

“It is not surprising that our proposal received low support, given the concerns we have about bias and conflicts of interest infecting the votes and recommendations of the Big 5 asset managers and proxy advisors, as well as the company’s management.”

This proposal did not pass, receiving only 1% of votes to approve.

Cinderella Castle

The final shareholder proposal dealt with the selection of ad buyers and sellers, requesting Disney conduct an evaluation on “how it oversees risks related to discrimination against ad buyers and sellers based on their political or religious status or views.”

Disney claimed that “an additional Board-level evaluation and report would not be in the best interests of shareholders,” and this proposal also did not pass. Ultimately, three shareholder proposals were discussed, and all three failed to pass. There are still some shareholder votes that need to be counted, but for now, this is how things have shaken out.

Mickey!

In the meantime, we’ll be on the lookout for more updates from the Walt Disney Company. Make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for the latest Disney news and more!

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