Policy Development & Application
ISS is committed to openness and transparency in formulating its proxy voting policies and in applying these policies to approximately 50,000 meetings in 110 markets.
Policy Formulation Process
Our bottom-up policy formulation process collects feedback from a diverse range of market participants through multiple channels: an annual Policy Survey of institutional investors and corporate issuers, roundtables with industry groups, and ongoing feedback during proxy season.
The ISS Policy Board uses this input to develop its draft policy updates on emerging governance issues each year. Before finalizing these updates, we publish draft updates for an open review and comment period. Final updates are published in November, to apply to meetings held after February of the following year.
Policy Application Process
ISS research analysts apply more than 400 policies to shareholder meetings, including ISS’ benchmark policies, specialty policies such as Taft-Hartley and Public Fund policies, along with custom policies defined by our clients.
As part of the research process, ISS analysts interact with company representatives, institutional shareholders, shareholder proponents and other parties to gain deeper insight into key issues. This dialogue helps ensure a full understanding of the facts and enriches our analysis. We have prepared a brief FAQ that provides more information about how we engage with companies.
Explore Current Policies
Our robust and transparent voting policies cover thousands of corporations across every region of the globe. They are regularly reviewed and vetted and can be accessed through our Voting Policy Gateway.
Visit the Policy Archive
Access and view our policy archive of retired benchmark voting polices and policy update documents dating back to 2013.