Two Companies, One Day, Two Very Different Results Merck published its annual sustainability report this week. The company’s website still states that Merck was among the first U.S. companies to disclose Equal Employment Opportunity data and that it will “continue to do so annually.” … Read More
diversity
Board Diversity Continues to Plateau
A new USA Today story highlights what many have suspected: the push to diversify corporate boards is losing steam. According to ISS-Corporate, women accounted for just one-third of new S&P 500 board seats in 2025, down sharply from a high of 44% in 2022. … Read More
Five Sustainability and Human Capital Disclosure Trends
Back in May, we published a detailed analysis of proxy season disclosure trends. We are finalizing a research paper analyzing trends across all sustainability-related disclosures covering workforce representation, employee development, pay equity, and board of directors—sign up now to get the full report … Read More
The State of Human Capital and DEI in 3 Charts
Last month, we highlighted the drastic pullback in board diversity disclosures early in this shareholder season. With nearly 2,500 Russell 3000 companies publishing their proxy statements, today we’re providing a more comprehensive look at board disclosure trends. Overall, there has been an … Read More
DEI Rollbacks in Full Effect this Proxy Season
Update: Our full proxy season analysis is now available for download here. With the Nasdaq Board Diversity Rule no longer in effect and heightened legal and regulatory uncertainty around what constitutes “illegal DEI,” a decline in board demographic disclosures was … Read More
PeopleReturn Releases Board of Directors Diversity Dashboard
Today we released our new board of directors diversity dashboard, featuring race, gender, ethnicity, and LGBTQ data and insights for the boards of every S&P 500 company. The sortable dashboard, which will continue to be updated by our analysts in real-time, … Read More
PeopleReturn Releases EEO-1 Disclosure Dashboard
Today we released our public EEO-1 dashboard, featuring gender, race, ethnicity, and EEO-1 disclosure insights on hundreds of S&P 500 companies. In addition to noting which companies have and haven’t disclosed their report to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, … Read More