A couple of socially-responsible investor groups launched a new Web-based effort as part of their campaign to oppose proposals from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that they say would seriously undermine the rights of investors.

The target is a couple of proposals published by the SEC on July 25, that the groups believe would weaken shareholder rights in the proxy process and in the selection of board members.

The Social Investment Forum and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility launched a website at www.SaveShareholderRights.org that aims to: enlist 500 institutions and financial professionals to sign a joint statement opposing the SEC proposals; and, help facilitate the filing of several thousand comments by individual investors, with copies of the comments going both to the SEC and the individual investors’ elected members of the U.S. House and Senate.

The new website is one of a number of efforts that will be mounted by SIF, ICCR and other concerned groups and investors before the comment period on the SEC proposals expires on October 2.

The groups worry that the proposals would allow companies with poor records when it comes to good corporate conduct and governance to drop out of the shareholder resolution process and isolate themselves further from their shareholders. They oppose the unilateral substitution of the electronic petition model for the existing shareholder resolution process. And, they say that the raising of shareholder resolution resubmission levels from the current 3%, 6% and 10% vote levels to 10%, 15% and 20% levels, would effectively kill many important shareholder resolutions.

SIF board chair and senior vice president of Walden Asset Management Tim Smith said, “We are investors and representatives of investors who take seriously our rights and our responsibility to be engaged and informed as shareowners of companies. We strongly oppose proposals at the SEC to either eliminate the shareholder resolution process or make it more difficult to sponsor resolutions. We also oppose any step to make it more difficult for investors to help nominate directors. Shareholder advocacy is vitally important in communicating with corporate boards, management and other investors on key issues such as climate change, governance reforms, employee diversity, executive compensation, and human rights in overseas factories.”

ICCR executive director Laura Berry said, “It is time for American investors large and small to voice their concerns to the SEC and Congress. As representatives of faith-based institutional investors, investment managers and other allies, the members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility are deeply committed to protecting this important link between morality and markets. We are united in our resolve to protect our right to continue to be active owners of corporate America and we intend to vigorously communicate our concerns to the SEC. We have worked for over 35 years with companies, protecting and strengthening a process that has served shareholders and publicly held corporations well.”

“Shareholder resolutions are a critical tool for investors to ask corporations to disclose the business risks of climate change and other sustainability issues” said Chris Fox, investor programs director at Ceres, a leading coalition of investors and environmental groups working with companies to address environmental challenges such as global climate change. “In more instances than not, shareholder resolutions have led to productive dialogues and positive results with companies. Without resolutions prodding companies to act, the vitally important issue of climate change would not have attained the prominence it has.”