[Announce] Day 12: Invest in green and socially just enterprises

[Robert Waldrop]

30 Days Towards Sustainability

Day 12: Invest in green and socially just 
enterprises.

"Where your treasure is, there also will be your 
heart." This bit of ancient wisdom is very 
relevant today. Many of us have retirement funds 
and other investments. I have 4% of my pay 
deducted for a retirement fund and my employer 
matches that with 5%, so 9% of my income goes into 
a retirement fund. I can choose among several 
different mutual funds to invest this money.

Not a single one of these funds has anything to do 
with the local economy or does any social or 
environmental screening of the companies invested 
in.

Memo to Bob: Write a letter to the head office and 
point out the virtue and the necessity of socially 
just and environmentally aware and local region 
investing.

The problem isn't a lack of choices for the 
managers of the retirement fund offered at my 
work. According to

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/09/05/socially-responsible-investing-a-primer/ 
(Or http://tinyurl.com/kjlml )

there are 221 mutual funds that can be described 
as "socially responsible", managing $229 trillion 
in assets, this is about 10% of all investment 
funds.

All SRI funds have some kind of screening process 
and criteria. The Social Investment Forum website 
has a page which compares the screening criteria 
of its member funds in these areas: alcohol, 
tobacco, gambling, weapons, animal testing, 
products/services, environment, human rights, 
labor relations, employment/equality, community 
investment. 
http://www.socialinvest.org/Areas/SRIGuide/mfsc.cfm

One aspect of socially responsible investing is 
providing venture capital to new enterprises with 
innovative ideas and products that meet 
environmental and/or social justice needs.

Returns on socially responsible investments are 
competitive with returns of regular mutual funds.

Advocates of SRI sometimes speak of the "triple 
bottom line" - investment to achieve returns in 
social justice, finances, and environmental care.

As with any investment, research is essential, and 
the Internet provides a lot of tools. Taking 
personal responsibility for our choices, including 
our financial and investment selections, is a 
critical aspect of the journey towards 
sustainability.

As I am writing this, I am reminded of one of the 
problems those of us working on a local food 
system face here in Oklahoma. Banks will rarely 
loan money to farmers to transition to local 
marketing and organic production. It seems to me 
that we need to invent/create some kind of 
financial structure to provide alternative methods 
of financing this need. Folks reading this who 
work in the financial industry could give the 
development of local organic agriculture a big 
boost by coming up with some innovative 
ways/structures to meet this need. Perhaps the 
Oklahoma Food Cooperative should start the 
Oklahoma Food Credit Union?

SPECIAL NOTE: For Catholic readers at 
announce at justpeace.org .  My employer is the 
Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, and I have always 
wondered why we have no assurance that the 
companies in the mutual funds in our retirement 
portfolio are not investing in abortion.  There 
are several mutual funds that say that they use 
"Catholic values" in screening their investments.

More info resources:

http://www.socialinvest.org/Areas/SRIGuide/ Start 
here. "Introduction to Socially Responsible 
Investing", from the Social Investment Forum, a 
non-profit membership organization promoting 
socially responsible investment.

http://www.csrwire.com/ , the "Corporate Social 
Responsibility" newswire

http://www.business-ethics.com/network.htm 
Corporate social responsibility report

http://www.investorscircle.net/index.php "Patient 
capital for a sustainable future"

http://www.ecosustainable.com.au/links.htm Lots of 
SRI links

Bob Waldrop, Oklahoma City

http://www.bettertimesinfo.org

http://www.oklahomafood.coop

These tips may be freely forwarded, credit for 
authorship is appreciated. They are posted online 
at 
http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/30days.htm .