Zevin Asset Management believes that Alphabet Inc.'s governance of customer and user data represents a material and underappreciated risk to investors, to the company's long-term reputation, and to the broader public interest. We have taken two coordinated steps to push for greater accountability: a formal shareholder proposal submitted for the Annual Meeting, and a direct engagement letter sent to Alphabet's Board of Directors as part of a broader investor coalition. What follows describes each action and the concerns that motivate them.
Home Depot's Data Privacy & Immigration Enforcement Risk
Our shareholder proposal asks Home Depot to report on data privacy risks associated with its use of Flock Safety, a surveillance vendor whose network has been repeatedly accessed by federal immigration enforcement through local police intermediaries.
Specifically, the proposal focuses on how the company identifies, measures, and mitigates risks related to potential access or use of that data by third parties, including law enforcement agencies beyond its direct control.
Immigration: An Asset, Not a Liability
As long-term investors, we view immigration as a powerful driver of economic innovation and long-term value creation. Despite escalating anti-immigrant sentiment and increased enforcement activities, immigrants—documented and undocumented alike—make substantial contributions to the U.S. tax base, labor force, consumer demand, and entrepreneurship. Immigrants paid $652 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2023¹, equivalent to 2.3% of U.S. GDP and more than the entire economies of countries like Belgium or Argentina. This capital is vital for public infrastructure, schools, healthcare, and retirement systems. Notably, undocumented immigrants pay a higher average effective tax rate than the top 1% of households.²
Investors Applaud the FTC’s Ban of Non-Compete Agreements, Safeguarding the Rights of Low- and Middle-Income Workers
Zevin Asset Management and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) today welcomed the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) passage of a ban on non-compete agreements (noncompetes), after having submitted a comment letter last year to the FTC, backed by investors representing $436B in assets, in support of the proposed ban back in April of 2023.
Unleashing Impact Through Gender Lens Investing
Gender lens investing offers investors a process for identifying and weighing issues pertaining to gender-based issues — pay equity, gender diversity, and career advancement, to name a few. We integrate these findings into our investment decision-making with the goal of mitigating risk, identifying opportunities, and creating positive social impact.
Gender equity, while an important aspect of Zevin Asset Management’s research and impact process, is a part rather than the sum of our approach. Given the overlap between the issues we work on in addition to gender equity, such as racial equity and climate change mitigation, we do not view these issues in isolation. Instead, we employ multiple lenses in our investment approach and look for intersectionality between these areas to help us better understand and address inequities in our systems and institutions.