If all your loved ones want for Christmas is some ESG-focused investments, then UK startup Tulipshare has the perfect gift cards for you.
Dubbing them “a great gift for an eco-warrior”, the mobile app-based company said the gift cards allow people to present friends and family with a gift card focused on campaigns aimed at the likes of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Coca Cola Co.
By pooling individual investments, the Tulipshare app aims to leverage collective shareholder power to push companies into improving aspects of their environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards, a tech-enabled form of ‘shareholder activism’.
It has called on Coca Cola, for example, to reduce single-use plastic bottle sales, while Microsoft is being pushed to “stop funding anti-abortion movements”.
These are among more than 20 campaigns for which customers can buy a gift card.
Currently boasting a user base of over 27,000 people, Tulipshare was previously involved in the campaign to end Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ)’s sale of talc-based powder, which allegedly caused cancer.
Shareholder activism was recently targeted by a raft of FTSE 100 companies that suggested investors were ‘grandstanding’ over their ESG policies, according to research published in early November.
However, Tesco PLC (LSE:TSCO) and Shell PLC (LSE:SHEL, NYSE:SHEL) were among those complaining that relationships between investors and executives were becoming strained, amid a ‘formulaic approach’ being taken by third-party agencies to scrutinise large companies.
Meanwhile, ex-BlackRock executive Terrance Keeley suggested that investing into companies and enforcing change was a far better way of ensuring good ESG practices among firms than choosing to simply fund those with good ratings.