Vanguard Investor Program Grows With Little Impact on Voting.

Around 40,000 individual investors in Vanguard Group's index-tracking funds participated in a pilot program that allowed them to express their opinions on important shareholder issues. Only about 25% of participants voted in line with recommendations from proxy adviser Glass, Lewis & Co. on ESG-related issues, while the majority followed the companies or Vanguard's stewardship team. Vanguard reported that it did not support any environmental or social resolutions filed by outside shareholders in the latest proxy season, suggesting that the program had little impact on changing the overall vote count on ESG matters. Vanguard plans to expand the program to include more US equity index funds. [Extracted from the article]