Home Depot Investors Back Racial Audit, Forest Proposals
- Race measure cites in part a Minneapolis employee incident
- Companies are facing a record number of social resolutions
A customer exits a Home Depot store in Livermore, California.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergHome Depot Inc. shareholders voted Tuesday in favor of proposals calling for an independent racial audit and a report on the company’s links to deforestation in its wood sourcing, adding to the wave of companies facing investor pressure on environmental, social and governance issues.
The racial-equity resolution calls for directors to authorize an independent audit into the effectiveness of the retailer’s practices related to stakeholders who are Black, Indigenous or people of color, and to minority communities. The resolution flagged an incident in which an employee at one of Home Depot’s Minneapolis stores was suspended when he refused to remove a Black Lives Matter logo from his uniform.