Contacts:
Lisa MacKinnon, Trillium Asset Management (617) 423-6655
Katie Cheney, First Peoples Worldwide (540) 899-6545

February 1, 2012 — First Peoples Worldwide (FPW), a global indigenous nonprofit dedicated to strengthening Indigenous Peoples, today announced a new partnership with Trillium Asset Management.  Under the terms of the partnership, Trillium is undertaking custom research and shareholder advocacy focused on how corporate policies and programs can better protect and enhance Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

Founded in 1997 by widely acclaimed advocate Rebecca Adamson, FPW supports projects that preserve biodiversity, identify contemporary applications for traditional knowledge, mitigate the impact of climate change, and advocate free prior informed consent.

Adamson, a Cherokee, has developed creative, mutually beneficial economic models since 1970 and was just interviewed for the 2013 PBS series entitled “Women Who Make America.” Her work includes creating the first microloan fund in the United States, the first tribal investment model, a national movement for reservation land reform, and legislation that established new standards of accountability regarding federal trust responsibility for Native Americans.

First Peoples’ new small grants fund, Keepers of the Earth, makes grants directly to communities in ways that ensure capital is engaged to reflect cultural values.  It is an effective platform for donors who want 100 percent of their monies directed to some of the most remote grassroots communities in the world. FPW is the only organization worldwide that distributes global grants using the collaborative intelligence of indigenous wisdom to address contemporary challenges in areas of wealth, environment and cultural preservation.

In keeping with Rebecca’s ongoing focus on innovation, she looked to Trillium to help build a new partnership to promote Indigenous voices in the corporate boardroom.

Trillium is the oldest independent investment firm focused exclusively on Sustainable and Responsible Investing. Under this partnership, Trillium is leveraging its expertise in corporate responsibility research and advocacy as well as its deep ties within the sustainable investing community. This collaboration culminates in a FPW publication called “Corporate Engagement Strategies: Indigenous Partnerships for Best Practice Solutions.”

As part of this publication, Trillium is providing FPW with regular research updates examining best practices in corporate America and reviewing new developments in legal cases and local and national legislation.

Trillium is also helping FPW engage in broader policy discussions around corporate responsibility.  For example, Trillium helped FPW provide formal input into the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines’ next generation framework. A recent letter signed by Rebecca Adamson, and supported by Trillium, makes the case that the current GRI reporting guidelines can be significantly improved by developing indicators that more explicitly address the reporting organizations’ impact on Indigenous communities and how well companies are equipped to anticipate, forestall and mitigate negative impacts.

According to CEO Matt Patsky, “We believe Trillium Asset Management is uniquely positioned to work with First Peoples in developing cutting edge research and advocacy on Indigenous peoples’ issues. We have been integrating these issues into our investment process since our founding in 1982.”

Rebecca Adamson said of the partnership, “Our partnership with Trillium signifies one of the first genuine platforms for Indigenous grassroots voices to be heard by corporate America. Trillium’s deep understanding of research and advocacy related to corporate sustainability policies is a powerful springboard that drives grassroots voices into the boardroom.”

This partnership illustrates well Trillium’s ability to provide custom research and advocacy services on behalf of other groups of investors.  Trillium believes there may be a strong demand for such a service from a variety of investor groups.

This partnership is a natural extension of the work Trillium has undertaken for some time to address Indigenous peoples’ rights. Trillium was one of the first investment companies to explicitly reference Native American and Indigenous peoples’ rights as a specific area of focus in its sustainable investment criteria. Trillium also addresses these issues through dialogue and shareholder proposals with some of the largest companies in America.

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First Peoples Worldwide is a global development nonprofit based in Fredericksburg, VA with expertise in indigenous management principles and solutions for best practice in corporate strategies. The FPW flagship fund Keepers of the Earth links donors directly with communities all over the world by making small grants in ways that successfully apply indigenous intelligence and support economically effective platforms for positive change.

Trillium Asset Management, LLC is the oldest independent investment advisor devoted exclusively to sustainable and responsible investing. With over $950 million in assets under management, Trillium has been managing equity and fixed income investments for high net worth individuals, foundations, endowments, religious institutions, and other non-profits since 1982. A leader in shareholder advocacy and public policy work, Trillium’s goal is to deliver both impact and performance to its investors.

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The letter was sent to Alaska Air, Amazon, Boeing, Costco, Expeditors, F5 Networks, JC Penney, Keybank, McDonalds, Nordstrom, PG&E, Perkins Coie, Paccar, T-Mobile, State Farm, Safeway, REI and Walgreens. It was signed by Trillium, the Equity Foundation, the Pride Foundation, the Sustainability Group at Loring, Wolcott, Calvert Investments, the Horizons Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Tides Foundation.

Trillium Vice President Shelley Alpern said, “Many of the companies we are contacting have admirable LGBT workplace policies. We hope that they will act quickly to ensure that their commitment to fairness and respect for diversity are not undercut by the inability of their LGBT workforce to marry in Washington State. The states that are beginning to recognize and allow gay marriage will have an advantage in attracting and retaining a wider pool of workers.”

The marriage equality bill has been voted out of committee and is said to be on a fast track toward a full vote by Washington legislators.

The full text of the letter can be viewed here.

Since the mid-’90s, Trillium has promoted LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) workplace equality through corporate dialoge and shareholder resolutions. More information about these initiatives can be found here.

Read more here

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The Joan Bavaria Award honors unique investor, business, and NGO leaders who are working to transform the capital markets into a system that balances economic prosperity with social and environmental concerns. The winner of this year’s award will be announced at the opening reception of the 2012 Ceres Conference on Tuesday, April 24, 2012, in Boston.

Bavaria founded both Ceres and Trillium Asset Management. She passed away in 2008 after a prolonged battle with cancer.

 “Joan Bavaria was a pioneer of social investing whose vision and humanity has helped catalyze change in the capital markets to help create a more sustainable economy for a better world,” said Ceres President Mindy Lubber. “The Joan Bavaria Award honors and celebrates those individuals who are carrying out her grand vision of integrating sustainability into the capital markets for the health of the planet and its people.”

This year, Ceres and Trillium Asset Management revised its award process and will now honor only one individual with the Joan Bavaria Award. In 2011, socially responsible investing advocates Peter Kinder, co-founder and former president of KLD Research & Analytics, and William Foote, founder and CEO of Root Capital, were recipients of the Joan Bavaria Award.

“It is humbling to be associated with such a visionary and intrepid leader as Joan Bavaria, whose example set the bar for all of us who followed in her footsteps,” said Foote in his acceptance speech last year. “We [Root Capital] are honored to play a small role as part of the growing community that is realizing her vision for a social capital market that builds prosperity in underserved communities.”

Previous winners also include the Center for Political Accountability in Washington, D.C., investor advocate Tim Smith of Walden Asset Management in Boston, sustainable business school Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington, the research collaborative Enhanced Analytics Initiative, and activist, prize-winning historian and Global Reporting Initiative founder Bob Massie.

 For more information or to submit a nomination, visit www.ceres.org/awards/joan-bavaria-award or contact Kristin Erekson at erekson@ceres.org or 617-247-0700 x124.

The brief makes the case that, “This dual regime [of unequal recognition of marriage by the federal government] uniquely burdens administrative complexity, and regardless of our business or professional judgment forces us to discriminate against a class of our lawfully-married employees, upon whose welfare and morale our own success in part depends.”

Ten additional amicus briefs were submitted by members of Congress, academics and historians, unions, civil rights organizations, bar associations and others. For more information and to download the briefs, visit here.

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Trillium Asset Management, LLC is the oldest independent US investment firm dedicated to sustainable investing.  

Sustainability is a concept used to describe social systems — whether a family, a corporation or a society as a whole.  A social system is sustainable when it is economically vital, environmentally responsible, and socially equitable.  Each of these qualities partly depends on the other two, and all of them flourishing together and in balance are necessary for a social system to be truly sustainable. 

We agree with essential themes emerging from Occupy Wall Street (OWS). 

The rallying cry of OWS is: “We are the 99%.”  With this self-identification, participants in OWS reference the amply documented fact that over the past 30 years wealth and income have been increasingly concentrated in the hands of just 1% of the US population.  As history teaches, such extreme inequity can be socially destabilizing and economically disruptive.  It is unsustainable.  

Wall Street is the target of this protest because it is one of the most visible symbols of concentrated wealth, and because many Wall Street institutions participated in bringing the global economy to the brink of disaster. The protestors are also justifiably disappointed in our government, which has failed to resist or meaningfully regulate the corrupting influence of corporate political spending, and at our tax structure, which advantages society’s wealthiest individuals. Most Americans share these frustrations, as do we at Trillium.

As a pioneer in the field of socially responsible investment, we believe it is our duty to advocate for a market-based economy that provides opportunity for, and serves the needs of the 100% — not just the 1%. We join the call for corporations to do their part by paying their fair share of taxes, comply with the letter and the spirit of regulations designed to protect the public interest, refrain from making political contributions, and treat customers, employees and communities with dignity and respect. We call on public policymakers to respond to the clear message of their constituents that our democratic system is imperiled by accelerating social and economic inequality, and take firm measures to redress this trend. We stand at a crossroads, and the direction we must take is clear.

About Trillium Asset Management, LLC

Trillium Asset Management, LLC has for nearly 30 years acted as an agent of capitalism with a conscience, using our voice as shareholders to advocate for economic vitality, environmental responsibility and social equity among publicly held corporations around the globe.

You can download this statement here.

NEW YORK – Shareholders of AT&T Inc. have filed a proposal calling for the company “to publicly commit to operate its wireless broadband network consistent with network neutrality principles” that would maintain open access to the Internet on wireless networks.

The filing comes only weeks before implementation of new Federal Communications Commission rules on network neutrality that provide a broad exemption for wireless broadband networks – the fastest growing segment of the Internet.

AT&T has sought in the past to block shareholders from voting on network neutrality issues. A similar shareholder proposal on wireless networks was excluded from AT&T’s 2011 proxy ballot following a Securities and Exchange Commission staff ruling that net neutrality was not a “significant public policy issue.”

The latest AT&T proposal has been filed by institutional investors including the Nathan Cummings Foundation as well as individual investors including Mike D of the Beastie Boys. Unless the proposal is blocked again, it’s expected to be voted on at the company’s annual meeting in April 2012.

“Net neutrality is clearly a material issue of import for AT&T and for the whole country, which is why it’s critical that shareholders be heard,” said Farnum Brown, Chief Investment Strategist for Trillium Asset Management, LLC, an independent investment firm with more than $900 million under management, which represents some of the filers.

According to Laura Campos, director of shareholder activities at the Nathan Cummings Foundation, “This issue has important implications for both social and economic justice and long-term shareholder value. As a shareholder, the Foundation is concerned that over the longer-term, a failure to operate its wireless broadband network in accordance with the principles of network neutrality could negatively impact AT&T’s market share and damage its reputation with consumers.”

The AT&T shareholder proposal cites research by the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University which concluded that an open Internet accounts for billions of dollars of economic value for Americans.”This economic and social value is an important factor in the growth of our economy and widely diversified investment portfolios,” the proposal states.

The proposal also notes that open Internet policies on wireless networks have particular importance for minority and economically disadvantaged communities. People of color access the Internet via cell phones at a much greater rate than their white counterparts, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “The digital freedoms at stake are a 21st century civil rights issue,” says Colorofchange.org, an organization representing African-Americans, which is cited by the shareholders.

The shareholder proposal calls on AT&T to proactively ensure that its wireless networks remain open and provide equal access and non-discriminatory treatment for all content.

“Maintaining the existing system of net neutrality for our mobile networks is a win-win – its good for economic growth and good for the principles of free expression that underpin our democracy – the greatest platform the world has known for sustainable economic growth,” said Jonas Kron, Deputy Director for Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium.

The shareholder initiative at AT&T was organized by Open MIC – the Open Media and Information Companies Initiative – a nonprofit organization that seeks to inform corporations’ responsible media management practices. “Net neutrality is necessary to insure competition, entrepreneurship, innovation, and free expression in the digital economy,” said Michael Connor, Open MIC’s Executive Director. “That’s why it is so important that the investor voice be heard.”

The complete text of the AT&T wireless network neutrality proposal is available on the Open MIC web site and can be downloaded here (PDF).

For more information about recent net neutrality issues, visit www.openmic.org.

The Open Media and Information Companies Initiative – Open MIC – is a non-profit organization working to promote a vibrant, diverse media ecosystem through market-based solutions. Founded in late 2006, Open MIC is a project of the Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

For more information, contact:
Michael Connor
Executive Director
212-537-9401
mconnor@openmic.org
www.openmic.org

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Investment Process

For nearly three decades, Trillium has pioneered products that combine both negative and positive sustainability criteria, culling out the best names in the investable universe. But Sustainable Opportunities sets the bar higher. To make the cut, a company must demonstrate it is directly creating positive change in one of three core areas: Economic Empowerment, Green Solutions, and Healthy Living. The thematic approach avoids companies significantly involved in fossil fuel production and distribution.

The portfolio team is led by Laura McGonagle, CFA, who has been with the firm for 10 years and has covered companies in the healthy living space since 1998. Like all of our products, the investment strategy is driven by rigorous fundamental analysis from a team of analysts looking for companies with strong growth prospects that are also trading at reasonable valuations. Sector experts embed an examination of key sustainability drivers into the full analysis of expectations for long term company financial performance – with a focus on how these drivers impact both risk and opportunities. But with the SO portfolio, we shift the emphasis to highlight the opportunities side of the equation. Trillium CEO Matt Patsky says, “At Trillium we believe that the companies revolutionizing the fields of energy efficiency, clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and preventive medicine will have the highest growth prospects and benefit from profound secular changes in the global economy.”

While the strategy is benchmarked to the S&P 1500, the SO strategy, by design, takes bets that deviate from the benchmark. As a thematic, high-conviction approach, SO has higher tracking error and fewer holdings than our other portfolios, as well as no set sector constraints. In addition, SO has higher international exposure than our core domestic strategies, at roughly 20 percent of the portfolio. Along with great individual client interest in SO, we are also seeing increasing institutional consultant interest in this strategy – particularly from consultants looking to pair it with a passive index product in a core satellite approach. SO has emerged from its incubation period as our fastest growing investment strategy, with nearly $50 million in assets under management.

Company Stories

Current holdings in the portfolio range from large companies with deep sustainability commitments, like Intel, Google, and Whole Foods, to smaller companies with a specialized focus on a particular product niche, such as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Johnson Controls, EcoLab, Fresenius, Waters Corporation, and Zipcar.¹

Johnson Controls, Inc. (JCI) – Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Johnson Controls is known as a leader in automotive interiors, such as seating and door panels. But the company has also established leading businesses in two core sustainability areas: batteries for hybrid and electric cars and high-efficiency heating and cooling systems for commercial buildings. The company’s building efficiency unit, for example, is responsible for reducing the carbon dioxide emissions of other companies’ buildings by 15 million metric tons since 2000, while generating savings of $7.5 billion. The company recently partnered with the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Clinton Climate Initiative on a demonstration project to make the Empire State Building more efficient, with total energy savings of 38 percent a year.

Fresenius Medical Care (FMS) – Based in Bod Hamburg, Germany, Fresenius is the world’s leading kidney dialysis company. With 2,757 locally-based dialysis clinics in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Africa, Fresenius helps more than 214,000 dialysis patients around the world gain easier access to treatment. The company serves a growing population of people with chronic renal failure. Two million people worldwide suffer from this condition, which is increasing 5 to7 percent per year due to greater life expectancy, and the growing prevalence of diabetes and high blood pressure. The company’s new generation of dialysis machines have eco-efficient features that reduce the water and electricity required for operation by 30 percent.

ZipCar, Inc. (ZIP) – Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, ZipCar provides an alternative to car ownership. Individuals become members to participate in a car-share, where they pay a fixed price to use a car for a specified period  of time, with gas included. The company estimates that each ZipCar takes 15 owned vehicles off the road and that members drive fewer miles – with 90 percent of members driving 5,500 miles or less per year. Members save more than $500 a month versus traditional car ownership. Many take advantage of access to the company’s growing fleet of hybrid and plug-in models, allowing them to test and promote the new technology. In April, the company’s initial public offering raised $174 million to fuel further expansion efforts beyond its current 605,000 members and more than 9,000 vehicles.

Advocacy Approach

With a portfolio of change-makers, our advocacy focuses on the emerging challenges that come from breaking new ground. Shelley Alpern, Director of ESG Research and Shareholder Advocacy, says: “Companies in the vanguard can encounter challenges for which there’s no standard blueprint for action and by default, their actions set a precedent. During this process, we’re encouraging them to establish new leadership standards rather than simply muddle through.” For example, under pressure from Trillium, other social investors, and human rights advocates, Intel (INTC) and Dell (DELL) are among a number of technology companies working together to create a verification process for Congolese mineral smelters that use “conflict free” metals. We are also participating in the Global Network Initiative, a multi-stakeholder group, alongside companies like Google (GOOG), to develop protocols to protect freedom of speech and privacy on the internet.

The second theme that runs through our advocacy in the SO portfolio is pressing companies that are standouts in particular areas to broaden their sustainability goals, or to become better at publicly reporting their achievements. We pressed former SO holding Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), a leader in serving hormone-free sour cream and antibiotic-free meats, to adopt stronger pesticide reduction goals. We also urged past holding Whole Foods Market (WFM) to reconsider its longtime anti-union stance.

Conclusion

By investing in tomorrow’s leaders, the SO strategy makes a strong case that focusing on sustainability can indeed help drive investment returns. We are optimistic that our newly minted 3-year track record will help a growing number of investors realize that this type of thematic investing should be an integral part of their investment portfolio.

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1. The use of specific companies does not represent investment advice. They are used as examples to assist in the explanation of the SO investment process.

The Economist, a sober British weekly, summed up the events in the United States as follows: “The political dysfunctionality of America has been on display as never before, to the nation’s shame. And it can still do plenty of harm to a very sick economy.”

It’s easy, under these circumstances, to join the “doom and gloom” chorus. I obviously don’t know what other disasters will come down between the time I finish this column and the time it is published, but I thought it might be useful to look for some silver linings or unexpected developments. So here goes.

Did you see where Ralph Nader has taken up shareholder activism again? Few people remember Nader’s early and influential shareholder campaigns at General Motors in the early 1970s. He is, of course, best known for his role as a consumer advocate and as a presidential also-ran who siphoned off enough Democratic voters in 2000 to enable George W. Bush’s election. Now Nader has a new target: Cisco Systems.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Nader disclosed that he owns 18,000 shares of Cisco, now worth about $288,000. Nader is a longtime Cisco shareholder. When he was running for President a decade ago, his stake was worth $1 million – and Ralph doesn’t appreciate this performance. In June he shot off a letter to Cisco’s longtime CEO, declaring that it is time for him to do something for the long suffering shareholders. He suggested a special dividend of $1 a share and an increase in the regular dividend from 24 cents a year to 50 cents. “If they can’t give shareholders value, they have to give cash,” said Nader.

Ralph Nader becoming a crusader for shareholders – who would have thunk it? Nader was, of course, one of the first to use the proxy statement to advance social issues – he mounted a campaign against General Motors in 1970 – but this marks the first time he has gone to bat for shareholders who have seen their stock languish for more than a decade.  He may have opened up a new career path for himself.

One of my favorite companies is the Seattle-based specialty department store chain, Nordstrom, one of only four companies that have graced every list Robert Levering and I have done since 1984 identifying the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in America. Nordstrom has stores all over the country but it has never found a way into New York City – until now. In August it opened a store in Soho called Treasure & Bond. It’s less than one-tenth the size of a regular Nordstrom and it has a different mix of merchandise – housewares and rugs, for example. The idea is to give the company some experience in the New York market. A Nordstrom store will follow later on.

But here’s the interesting feature of Treasure & Bond: all the profits will go to children’s charities.

I always look forward to the weekend edition of the Financial Times, where the third page of the second section is devoted to an interview over lunch with someone prominent from academia, the arts, politics or business. In August, staff writer Peter Aspden took Diego Dalla Valle to lunch at the celebrated Milanese restaurant, Il Bareto al Baglioni. Dalla Valle runs the luxury goods company, Tod’s, founded by his family in the early years of the twentieth century.

For lunch they both had my favorite Italian dish, veal Milanese washed down with a Montalcino red. They rarely prepare it anymore in Italian restaurants in America. Because of its shape, it’s sometimes called “elephant’s ear.”

Tod’s recently pledged Â20 million to support the restoration of the Roman Colosseum, the most visited tourist destination in Italy. Work starts in September and will take two to three years. When completed, it will look just the way it did centuries ago. Della Valle explained this investment as follows: “We have an obligation to do things for our country. To create a sense of solidarity. Our country is made by proud Italians.”

In the United States corporations put their names on ball parks. Dalla Valle promises that Tod’s will not commercialize its restoration of the Colosseum. We can all subscribe to his idea of what a corporation should be about.

The DOJ upended the story of inevitability that AT&T was asserting about its $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile, arguing that AT&T’s elimination of T-Mobile as an independent, low- priced rival would remove a significant competitive force from the market, and would:

Result in tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services. Consumers across the country, including those in rural areas and those with lower incomes, benefit from competition among the nation’s wireless carriers, particularly the four remaining national carriers.

The deal would have been particularly bad for minorities. The National Hispanic Media Coalition reports:

Latinos pay the highest rates on AT&T, averaging bills of $120 per month, and the lowest on T-Mobile, averaging $102. Thus, it should be no surprise that approximately 21–25 percent of T-Mobile’s 34 million customers are Latino, compared to 12 percent of AT&T’s customers. If this acquisition were approved, T-Mobile customers would have fewer choices for pricing plans and devices and would be subject to AT&T’s documented history of poor customer service.

The DOJ action is a strong rebuke to the corrosive influence of mammoth lobbying budgets. AT&T had pulled out all the stops in its lobbying efforts, and it is no small victory of the rule of law over political spending that this tactic appears to have failed. Bloomberg reported that the company boosted its spending on lobbying by 30 percent to $11.7 million in the first six months of 2011 (from the same period last year) as it sought regulators’ blessing for the merger. Its political action committee, which distributes money raised from employees, gave over $800,000 to federal candidates in 2011, more than any other company, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

By many indications, despite AT&T’s pledge to fight the DOJ to the bitter end or try and negotiate a settlement, the proposed mergers seems on the path to failure. The highly respected telecom analyst Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research concluded in the wake of the DOJ’s announcement that the deal “can be considered all but definitely dead.”

But even if the deal is dead, a problem of great concern remains – the movement of the US wireless internet access market toward a duopoly in which AT&T and Verizon act as gatekeepers to the Internet with the power to exercise discriminatory pricing. Without net neutrality, AT&T and Verizon would have powerful economic incentives to promote the content of their “partners” – big content producers, like Disney, NBC and NewsCorp, from whom they can charge higher prices, while offering slower, inferior service to small, independent or politically controversial voices that are unwilling or unable to “pay to play”.

In support of net neutrality, the California chapter of the National Organization for Women stated, “The Internet is one of the few ways left for ordinary people to make their views heard in a national forum. Organizations, coalitions and individuals from underserved and underrepresented groups can use the web to get their issues and voices heard. If content from large corporations gets priority, what happens to these voices?” The Internet is has become the public square of the 21st century and it must be protected as a resource for all of us.

This is why we will continue to press AT&T and Verizon through shareholder proposals to make meaningful and specific commitments to respect net neutrality – the principle that they cannot privilege, degrade or prioritize information transmitted over its wireless infrastructure based on its source, ownership or destination.

As the lawsuit and potential settlement negotiations proceed this fall and winter, we will be making our case to AT&T and Verizon shareholders that for the good of our society, our economy, and yes, the individual companies, that they should adopt and abide by strong net neutrality principles.

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Sources: U.S. Department of Justice Press Release, August 31, 2011 (www.justice.gov); National Hispanic Media Coalition (www.nhmc.org); Financial Times, September 1, 2011; OpenSecrets blog, August 31, 2011 (www.opensecrets.org); California National Organization for Women statement, November 23, 2010 (www.canow.org).

First, on employee empowerment. Our founder Joan Bavaria started Trillium with the belief that we should create a “work environment that encourages personal development and growth, and in which ownership, responsibilities and rewards are broadly shared.”

On July 1, Trillium converted its corporate structure from a “C” corporation to a partnership, completing our journey to a fully independent, employee owned firm. Trillium was able to begin this conversion after we bought back a stake held by Wainwright Bank in December 2010, one of my first priorities as CEO. The transition to an LLC structure has allowed us to broaden employee ownership – now, nearly 90 percent of Trillium employees own stock in the firm, the highest ever.

Next, on advocacy. We continue to innovate in our advocacy work, feeling a need to work even harder in response to the paralysis in Washington.

In the wake of the January 2010 Citizens United decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court decided that corporations can spend an unlimited amount of money to influence elections, informed and involved ownership has never been more important. Using shareholder resolutions and dialogue, Trillium partnered with other concerned investors and the Center for Political Accountability to press Target, Best Buy, Pentair and other companies to strengthen their disclosure and oversight of political expenditures. Trillium will continue to press companies for transparency and positive action on these and other environmental, social, and governance issues. (See an overview of our recent advocacy wins in this month’s cover story.)

Finally, we continue to make progress on our ambitious goal of transforming capital markets, both through our own work and in collaboration with others. As you’ll read, our Sustainability Opportunities product turned three. By investing in innovative companies providing answers to sustainability challenges, we are helping to direct capital to companies moving ahead of the curve. In the autumn of 2009, I was proud to represent Trillium as a founding member of Slow Money, an organization which is working to “accelerate the transition from an economy based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on preservation and restoration.” This organization continues to have a profound impact by bringing like minded investors together in the aim of building a community to change capital markets. I will be speaking at third annual Slow Money Gathering which is taking place in San Francisco on October 12–14 and hope to see you there.

So after two eventful years, I look back on our progress and truly believe we have never been better positioned to live up our goal of combining performance and impact for our clients. I hope you agree.

“A good portion of our dialogues and resolutions resulted in agreements with companies to improve policies and provide more transparency,” said Matt Patsky, CEO of Trillium. “Both are helpful in assessing the environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks and their financial impact on shareholders.” Trillium’s ESG engagements addressed a wide range of concerns in 2011, including climate change and fossil fuel dependency, hydraulic fracturing, indigenous peoples’ rights, workplace discrimination, pollution at the community level, and a free and open Internet.

Industry-wide, average votes rose this year for resolutions addressing hydraulic fracturing, political contributions, climate change, and workplace discrimination policies. According to Institutional Shareholder Services, a division of MSCI, the average level of support for environmental and social resolutions “surpassed the 20 percent mark for the first time, while the number of proposals receiving less than 20 percent continued to decline.” Five received majority votes.¹

Environmental Advocacy

Roughly half of our 2011 engagements focused on the environment or environmental health matters.

Concerned with the environmental health risks and water-intensiveness of hydraulic fracturing, Trillium filed a shareholder proposal at energy company Anadarko Petroleum (APC), which has large drilling operations in Pennsylvania. Following a productive dialogue, we withdrew it when the company agreed to expand and improve its public reporting on hydraulic fracturing.

Dialogue with Costco (COST), the warehouse-style consumer products retailer, produced a substantially improved seafood sustainability policy. Costco will stop selling twelve wild species identified as ‘at great risk’ by the Marine Stewardship Council, up from seven. Costco is also partnering with reputable nongovernmental organizations to come into compliance with best practice standards for shrimp and salmon aquaculture.

We withdrew a shareholder proposal at the food distributor Sysco Corporation (SYY) after the company agreed to participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project, the Carbon Disclosure Project Water Survey, and to fully develop its sustainability strategy to include water scarcity and sustainable agriculture.

Trillium worked to ward off the construction of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay Alaska. Proposed by the U.K.-based Anglo-American (AAM.SW), Pebble Mine, if built, would be the largest open pit mineral mine in North America. It would generate billions of tons of mining waste to be held behind a massive system of dams in a highly earthquake-prone area – and one that happens to be the breeding grounds for the largest sockeye salmon run in the world.

Currently the Environmental Protecting Agency (EPA) is reviewing the proposed mine to determine whether it should veto the project under its Clean Water Act authority. In April Trillium organized a group of shareholders, representing $170 billion of assets under management, to publicly issue a joint statement calling for the agency to protect this vitally important national resource. Within 48 hours of posting, EPA staffers requested a meeting with Trillium.

Corporate Political Spending

In 2011, shareholders expressed their deep discomfort with corporate political spending more strongly than ever before. In the spring, forty-six percent (46%) of votes cast by Halliburton (HAL) shareholders supported our proposal for greater transparency and oversight at the energy services company, as did 44% of the vote at State Street (STT). And for the first time, a resolution of this type received a majority vote (at mobile phone company Sprint Nextel, courtesty of the New York City Employees Retirement System).

Early last August, Trillium was part of a shareholder group that reacted swiftly to the revelation that a number of Minnesota companies had given substantial contributions, via a business front group, to a gubernatorial candidate with extreme anti-gay views. As protestors demonstrated at its stores, Target Corporation (TGT) became the focus of a nationwide boycott that received generous media attention during a slow news month. Within days of the initial revelations, Trillium filed shareholder resolutions at Target, Pentair (PNR), Best Buy (BBY) and 3M (MMM) calling for a review of existing political donations policies and tighter oversight of the reputation and other risks incurring from them.

These companies’ ill-considered donations represented a betrayal, intentional or not, of these companies’ commitment to valuing diversity. They also illustrate the widening reach of corporations in the wake of Cititzens United, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed significant barriers to corporate political involvement. Except at 3M (where our resolution gained 31 percent of the vote), the resolutions were eventually withdrawn at all of the companies after they demonstrated that they had improved their oversight of political contributions and the procedures in place for vetting potential recipients. A multiyear national shareholder campaign coordinated by the Center for Political Accountability has resulted in the adoption of best practices in political disclosure by 88 companies, including more than 50 in the S&P 100.

Most experts expect “independent” groups’ political spending to reach record levels in 2012. Independent groups, many of which receive corporate funding, are not allowed to coordinate with campaigns, but enforcement is lax.

Conflict Minerals

“Conflict minerals” are those whose proceeds finance fighting by armed groups in war-torn regions, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Trillium took part in a meeting with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to discuss proposed rules on conflict minerals mandated by the passage of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act. Several of the recommendations we supported were included in the SEC’s recently proposed new rules.

In February, Trillium was part of an investor coalition representing nearly $200 billion in assets that released a statement calling on companies to condemn the use of minerals whose trade promotes the conflict in DRC, and take immediate steps to eliminate them from their supply chains. Trillium also lobbied for the passage of landmark legislation in California that will ban companies that do not comply with the SEC’s disclosure requirements for conflict mineral from bidding on state contracts. The legislation passed the Senate in June and is currently pending in committee.

Internet Privacy and Freedom of Expression

CenturyLink (CTL), the nation’s third largest telecommunications company, finally owned up to its responsibilities regarding Internet privacy and freedom of expression. Trillium’s well-supported 2009 and 2010 shareholders proposals (both received about 30 percent of the vote) had asked the company to report on how it would avoid violating Internet users’ privacy. (Comcast had done business with an online advertising company that secretly monitored Internet users’ browsing activities.) In exchange for the withdrawal of our 2011 resolution, CenturyLink agreed to incorporate privacy and freedom of expression responsibilities into its governing documents.

Trillium’s 2011 shareholder proposals on “net neutrality” at AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Comcast (CMCSA) were excluded from the companies’ ballots with permission from the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the grounds that they focused on “ordinary business.” We were pleased, however, that U.S. Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote to SEC Chairman Shapiro to object to the decision, insisting that “whether the government will preserve and protect today’s free and open Internet is the telecommunications and free speech issue of our time.” We plan to re-file on net neutrality in 2012.

Workplace Protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Workers

In 2010, we worked with the Equity Foundation to file a shareholder proposal at Gardner Denver (GDI), asking the manufacturer to include sexual orientation and gender identity expression to its nondiscrimination policy; it garnered the support of 49 percent of shareholder votes. To our surprise, it was necessary to re-file the proposal in 2011, but the resubmission spurred the company to implement our proposal, which we then withdrew. In contrast, Lowes Corporation (LOW) responded very positively and quickly to our request.

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1. ISS U.S. Proxy Season Review 2011: Environmental and Social.

But do you know what’s in your alma mater’s portfolio? Your donations to your university’s endowment support its operations for years to come.

Across the country university presidents have focused on greening their campuses. LEED-certified buildings have been built at many schools, alternative sources of energy from wind to methane digesters are being installed, and hundreds have signed up to the Presidents’ Campus Climate Commitment. These efforts certainly conform to the standard vision of college in America as an idyllic bastion of thoughtful, liberal consideration, where research and teaching are done and administrations make carefully considered decisions in the best interests of their students and stakeholders.

Yet investment policies have lagged, perhaps because investment decisions are often detached from the general campus culture. In some cases the offices are even hundreds of miles away.

Institutions of higher education are 501(c)3 public-benefit institutions with a mission of education and research and an obligation to serve the broader community. One can envision a world where colleges invest money locally in their community and in sustainable investments worldwide, fulfilling their broader mission while still make substantial investment returns.

The Responsible Endowments Coalition (REC) is working to make that vision a reality while training the next generation of responsible investment leaders. REC works with students, faculty and administrators to promote responsible investing of all kinds, from shareholder engagement to community investment.

In one recent example, students from Carleton College in Minnesota represented the school’s Responsible Investment Committee at a recent annual meeting of 3M Corporation. They spoke in support of a shareholder resolution addressing the company’s political contributions policy, which lags substantially behind those of many other companies.¹ Their outspokenness garnered substantial press in the local media, drawing attention to the company and the school, where otherwise the topic may have gone without much coverage.

Students who are involved in responsible investment gain substantial experience working with administrators and confronting corporate power. They leave school to become leaders who understand the power of money and how to use it to do good things.

In another example, students at Fordham University saw the great disparity between the school and its Bronx neighborhood. They describe the school as “a beautiful campus with walls” and have been disappointed with its relationship to the community. The student group Fordham For The Bronx pressed the university to invest money into community development financial institutions – community controlled organizations that provide better services to low-income communities.

Students from Fordham attended REC’s conference at Columbia in the fall of 2010, organized teach-ins and events on campus, and after building student support, successfully convinced their administration to invest $500,000 in two community investment institutions in the Bronx, Bethex Federal Credit Union and Amalgamated Bank.

Higher education’s $350 billion dollars in endowments is money that should be aligned with its mission.

REC is advocating nationally for responsible investment at colleges and universities, but these institutions need to hear from their graduates as well.

To press your alma mater (or your child’s) to change its policies, write to your university’s president when you make your next donation. For more information visit REC at www.endowmentethics.org

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1. The proposal was co-sponsored by Trillium Asset Management and Walden Asset Management.

Trillium joined business leaders, other SRI investors, and members of the community at a meeting on September 20th, 2011 to deliver a strong economic argument to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and 10 other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Governors in favor of pursuing a regional clean fuels standard in their states.

The meeting was hosted by NESCAUM, Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management to give stakeholders a chance to discuss an economic analysis, released last month, on the regional impacts of a clean fuels standard.  The clean fuel standards require producers to gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted per mile traveled by mixing lower carbon fuels into their supply mix.  In addition, suppliers are allowed to determine the best way to meet the standards, including blending biofuels, reducing production emissions or purchasing credits to offset emissions.

NESCAUM’s analysis found that the impacts of a clean fuels standard, designed to reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels in the region by 5% to 15% over the next 10 to 15 years by replacing some gasoline and diesel with lower carbon fuels such as electricity, advanced biofuels and natural gas, could strengthen the region’s economy, help reduce emissions, enhance energy independence and reduce vulnerability to the frequent price swings in imported oil. The economic analysis also shows that a clean fuels standard could reduce regional oil consumption by up to 8.7 billion gallons annually in 2022 and beyond, saving up to $137 billion in fuel expenditures over ten years and helping to keep more money circulating in local economies.

For more information, please contact Carol Lee Rawn at Ceres at rawn@ceres.org

Click here to read the article.

Good news came out of the United Nations this summer that has positive implications for shareholder advocates and activists working to promote and protect human rights.  The UN Human Rights Council (formerly the UN Commission on Human Rights) endorsed the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework.[1] Six years in the making, the Guiding Principles are the first set of standards ever endorsed by the UN that examine the intersection of business and human rights.

Unlike the UN Global Compact, a set of voluntary business principles introduced in 2000 to address human rights, labor standards, the environment and anti-corruption strategies, the Guiding Principles were born of a mandate by UN member governments. Developed under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on  human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, John Ruggie, their purpose is to answer the question of what states and businesses need to do to ensure business respect for human rights. The answer provides investors as well as governments with a set of standards against which to hold companies accountable.

To develop this comprehensive framework, Ruggie, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, undertook research that included mapping patterns of alleged human rights abuses by business, and examining standards of international human rights law and international criminal law. From numerous meetings across 47 countries, Professor Ruggie concluded that the public and private initiatives working to uphold human rights hadn’t yet reached a scale sufficient to change market behavior. The Guiding Principles were designed to act as an authoritative high level guidance that provided room for tailoring at the industry level. They emphasize stakeholder engagement and collaboration among governments, businesses, and civil society, anchored by three pillars of responsibility:

1.    The state duty to protect against human rights abuses from third parties — including business — through policies, regulation, and adjudication;

2.    The corporate responsibility to respect human rights, implementing due diligence to avoid infringement and address adverse impacts; and,

3.    Access to effective remedy for victims of human rights abuses.

The thirty-one Guiding Principles aligned with these pillars give states and businesses a roadmap. The centerpiece of the corporate responsibility to respect is a due diligence process that includes adopting a policy, assessing human rights risk, acting on the findings, and tracking and reporting on performance. Investors have worked for decades to bring human rights assessment into the realm of reporting and accountability.  We think the Guiding Principles provides a coherent platform that can compel companies to manage and report their human rights policies and performance.

The office of the UN Special Representative has already compiled 15 pages of references to instances that illustrate a practical application of the ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework, in whole or in part, within the context of a particular organization[2] Among the references are companies that have said they have applied or plan to apply  the Framework to their operations. These include Citigroup and Phillips Van Heusen.

Investor actions are also referenced, including Trillium’s work in 2010, partnering with Domini Social Investments and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, to pressured Toyota to influence an affiliate to divest from its joint venture with Myanmar Suzuki Motor. The joint venture was directly aiding the Burmese regime notorious for its wide-scale human rights abuses and suppression of democracy.  Prodding Toyota to act on its duty to respect human rights and understand the reputational risks at stake were the levers that led to the successful outcome.

Spreading Influence

Importantly, the Global Reporting Initiative’s latest revision of its reporting guidelines were amended earlier this year to address the ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework and now include disclosure expectations around due diligence and access to grievance and remedy.

The Social Sustainability Resource Guide: Building Sustainable Communities through Multi-Party Collaboration, published this summer by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), makes a strong case for elevating the importance of measuring social impacts. The authors site the ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework for business and human rights, underscoring that an emphasis on assessing potential and actual human rights impacts is directly relevant to measuring social sustainability impacts.[3]

Some organizations involved in developing the framework were not satisfied with the final result.  ”In effect, the council endorsed the status quo: a world where companies are encouraged, but not obliged, to respect human rights,” said Arvind Ganesan, business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Guidance isn’t enough – we need a mechanism to scrutinize how companies and governments apply these principles.”[4]

The Child Rights Information Network (CRIN), a network of organizations that support the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, drew attention to what it perceived as a lack of attention in the document to children’s rights. “Regrettably, upon review of the Guiding Principles as submitted to and adopted by the Human Rights Council, it is clear that children’s rights continue to be ignored,” the organization stated in a June 2011 press release.[5]

Christine Bader, past Advisor to UN Special Representative John Ruggie, acknowledged the criticism, but defended the UN Human Rights Council’s endorsement. “Even if a milestone like endorsement of the Guiding Principles is considered a victory, it’s within the context of a much longer journey….The Guiding Principles don’t suddenly solve all of the world’s problems; rather, they’re meant to serve as a common foundation for all that is needed next, including sector-specific guidance, capacity building, and ongoing multi-stakeholder dialogue.”[6]

It is important that the Guiding Principles be viewed as more than a modest attempt to improve corporate responsibility around human rights abuse. A five-person working group will meet this fall to develop ways to promote the Guiding Principles. The Human Rights Council has also asked the working group to make recommendations aimed at improving victims’ access to remedies. A Forum on Business and Human Rights for governments, business, and others is expected to meet annually and act as an evaluative body, taking a broad look at how the guiding principles are being carried out.  This working group will need to produce timely and substantive communications in order to temper skepticism.

Trillium strongly believes that the promotion and protection of human rights specifically, and social sustainability generally, need greater participation from the corporate sector. The Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework will give shareholder advocates and human rights activist an authoritative standard that can be used to measure a company’s progress on human rights. Multi-stakeholder collaboration strategies offered by the ICCR Resource Guide and other complementary resources can help to sharpen the guidance corporations need to embrace. The work of discerning the leaders and laggards has become more achievable with the publication of these efforts.

[2] http://www.business-humanrights.org/media/documents/applications-of-framework-jun-2011.pdf.

[3] http:/www.iccr.org/publications/2011SSRG.pdf.

[4] http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/06/16/un-human-rights-council-weak-stance-business-standards.

[5] http://www.crin.org/violence/search/closeup.asp?infoID=25245

[6] http://csrwiretalkback.tumblr.com/post/7316048731/ngos-dissatisfied-fine-with-me.

“A good portion of our dialogues and resolutions resulted in agreements with companies to improve policies and provide more transparency,” said Matthew Patsky, CEO of Trillium. “Both are helpful in assessing the environmental, social and governance risks and their financial impact on shareholders.”

Trillium’s ESG program addressed a wide range of concerns in 2011, including climate change and fossil fuel dependency, indigenous peoples’ rights, discrimination in the workplace, community-level impacts of industrial and energy production, and a free and open Internet.

Environmental Advocacy

Roughly half of Trillium’s engagements in 2011 focused on the environment or environmental health matters.

Concerned with the risks associated with the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, Trillium filed a shareholder proposal at energy company Anadarko Corporation (APC), which has a large interest in the Marcellus Shale.  “Following a productive dialogue, we withdrew a shareholder proposal when the company agreed to expand and improve its public reporting on hydraulic fracturing. There’s more to be done and we’ll continue to advocate at Anadarko and other companies for increased transparency and the safest practices,” said Shelley Alpern, Director of ESG Research and Shareholder Advocacy.

Dialogue with Costco (COST), the warehouse-style consumer products retailer, produced another constructive outcome. The company produced and released to Trillium and Green Century Funds a substantially improved seafood sustainability policy. “Costco will discontinue selling twelve wild species identified as ‘at great risk’ by the Marine Stewardship Council, up from seven,” said Susan Baker, Senior Research Analyst at Trillium. “The company is also partnering with reputable nongovernmental organizations to come into compliance with best practice standards for shrimp and salmon aquaculture.”

We were able to withdraw a shareholder proposal that we filed with food distribution company   Sysco Corporation (SYY) after the company agreed to participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project, the Carbon Disclosure Project Water Survey, and to fully develop its sustainability strategy to include areas such as water scarcity and sustainable agriculture. “We look forward to the ongoing dialogue with the company as we continue to meet with its senior executives in the months to come,” commented Jonas Kron, Director of ESG Research and Shareholder Advocacy.

Trillium also took steps to help ward off the construction of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay Alaska. Proposed by the U.K.-based Anglo-American (AAM.SW), Pebble Mine, if built, will be the largest open pit mineral mine in North America. It would generate billions of tons of mining waste to be held behind a system of dams (equivalent to the Three Gorges dams in China) in a highly earthquake-prone area – and one that serves as the breeding grounds for the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. Currently the Environmental Protecting Agency (EPA) is reviewing the proposed mine to determine whether it should veto the project under its Clean Water Act authority. In April Trillium organized a group of shareholders representing $170 billion of assets under management to publicly issue a joint statement calling for the agency to protect this vitally important national resource.  “Within 48 hours of publication, EPA staffers in charge of the review requested a meeting with Trillium. At that meeting we had ample time to express our concerns and were pleased at how seriously they were taken,” Kron said.

 
Corporate Political Spending

In 2011, shareholders expressed their deep discomfort with corporate political spending more strongly than ever before. In the spring, forty-six percent (46%) of votes cast by Halliburton (HAL) shareholders supported our proposal for greater transparency and oversight at the energy services company, as did 44% of the vote at State Street (STT). And for the first time, a resolution of this type filed at mobile phone company Sprint Nextel (by the New York Employees Retirement System) received a majority vote.

These votes were a fitting cap to a proxy season that started early last August, when Trillium was part of a shareholder group that responded promptly to the revelation that a number of Minnesota-based companies had given substantial contributions, via a business front group, to a gubernatorial candidate with extreme anti-gay views. As protestors demonstrated at its stores, Target Corporation (TGT) became the focus of a nationwide boycott that received generous media attention during a slow news month. Within days of the initial revelations, Trillium filed shareholder resolutions at Target, Pentair (PNR), Best Buy (BBY) and 3M (MMM) calling for a review of existing political donations policies and tighter oversight of the reputation and other risks incurring from them.

“These ill-considered donations represented a betrayal of these companies’ commitment to valuing diversity, and illustrated the widening reach of corporations in the wake of Cititzens United,” said Alpern, referring to the 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed significant barriers to corporate political involvement. With the exception of 3M (where our resolution gained 31% of the vote), the resolutions were eventually withdrawn at all of the companies after they demonstrated that they had reviewed and improved their oversight of political contributions and the procedures in place for vetting potential recipients. A multiyear national shareholder campaign coordinated by the Center for Political Accountability has resulted in the adoption of best practices in politicaldisclosure by 85 companies, of which 50 are in the S&P 100.

 
Conflict Minerals

Trillium took part in a meeting with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to discuss proposed rules on conflict minerals mandated by the passage of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act.  Conflict minerals are those whose proceeds finance fighting by armed groups in war-torn regions, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). “We were gratified to see several of our recommendations included in the SEC’s recently proposed new rules,” said Susan Baker. In February, Trillium was part of an investor coalition representing nearly $200 billion assets that released a statement calling on companies to condemn the use of minerals whose trade promotes the conflict in the DRC and take immediate steps to ensure that these minerals are not used in their products.

With other socially responsible and faith-based investors, Trillium also lobbied for the passage of landmark legislation in California (SB 861) that will forbid companies that do not comply with disclosure requirements under the SEC’s conflict mineral rules from bidding on state contracts for goods and services. The legislation passed the Senate on June 1 and is currently pending in committee.   

 
Internet Privacy and Freedom of Expression

CenturyLink (CTL), the nation’s third largest telecommunications company, finally owned up to its responsibilities regarding Internet privacy and freedom of expression. Trillium’s well-supported 2009 and 2010 shareholders proposals (both received about 30% of the vote) had asked the company to report on how it would avoid violating Internet users’ privacy, after it was revealed to be in business with an online advertising company that secretly monitored Internet users’ browsing activities. In exchange for the withdrawal of our resolution this year, CenturyLink agreed to incorporate privacy and freedom of expression responsibilities into its governing documents.

Trillium’s 2011 shareholder proposals on what is called “net neutrality” at AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Comcast (CMCSA) were excluded from the companies’ ballots with permission from at the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the grounds that they focused on a matter of “ordinary business.”   We were pleased, however, that the SEC’s decision was roundly criticized by U.S. Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Ron Wyden (D-OR). In March, they wrote to SEC Chairman Shapiro to object to the decision, asserting “Whether the government will preserve and protect today’s free and open Internet is the telecommunications and free speech issue of our time.”

 
LGBT Workplace Policies

In 2010, we worked with the Equity Foundation to file a shareholder proposal at Gardner Denver (GDI), asking the manufacturer to recognize sexual orientation and gender identity expression in its nondiscrimination policy; it garnered the support of 49% of shareholder votes. “To our surprise, it was necessary to re-file the proposal in 2011; the resubmission was successful in spurring the company to adopt our policy recommendation and we subsequently withdrew the proposal,” said Jonas Kron. “In contrast, Lowes Corporation (LOW) responded very positively and quickly to our request, and now its 200,000 employees are protected by an up-to-date policy that includes gender expression.”

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About Trillium Asset Management, LLC

Boston-based Trillium Asset Management, LLC is the oldest independent investment advisor devoted exclusively to sustainable and responsible investing. We believe examining environmental, social, and governance factors as an integrated part of the investment process can lower portfolio risk and help identify the best managed companies. With close to $1 billion in assets under management, we have been managing equity and fixed income investments for high net worth individuals, foundations, endowments, religious institutions, and other non-profits since 1982. A leader in shareholder advocacy and public policy work, our goal is to deliver both impact and performance to our investors.

 2011 Shareholder Proposals

Bolded items indicate a “lead filing,” where Trillium Asset Management, LLC leads a coalition of shareholder advocates; all others are where we have co-filed in collaboration with other lead filers.  

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“We’re delighted to have Paul join Trillium. His long history as an innovator in the field of SRI augments the deep talent already in place at Trillium,” commented Trillium CEO Matt Patsky.  Paul has worked with Trillium staff over the years on various projects, including the co-founding of SIRAN (Social Investment Research Analyst Network, a national group of analysts working to promote dialogue with companies about corporate responsibility). “Everyone looks forward to having him on the Trillium team,” Matt said.

Paul joins us at a very exciting time, as we are experiencing significant growth in institutional and individual assets in the past year. Our strong performance record and shareholder advocacy victories have been generating increasing demand for our services. “Having another experienced portfolio manager allows us to effectively manage this growth,” he added.

Paul told Investing for a Better World, “I am very excited to join the outstanding team of socially responsible investment (SRI) professionals at Trillium, to help further build the brand and expand our footprint into new channels. I also look forward to leveraging my experience integrating environment, social, and governance (ESG) research with financial analysis to continue to build strong portfolios for clients. Trillium is at the forefront of ESG integration, and I am thrilled to be a key member in helping to chart this evolving course.”

Prior to joining Trillium, Paul was a vice president for sustainable investment business strategy at Calvert Investments, leading SRI product and business development, with a particular focus on the institutional and international arenas. He also previously held senior positions within Calvert’s Equities and Marketing Departments. Prior to Calvert, Paul was a portfolio manager for SRI at The Dreyfus Corporation. At Dreyfus he was responsible for social research and advocacy for the Dreyfus Premier Third Century Fund and its variable annuity counterpart, the Dreyfus Socially Responsible Growth Fund. He also served as a research analyst in the Social Awareness Investment program at Smith Barney Asset Management, then a division of Citigroup. Paul started his career in the field as an analyst with the Council on Economic Priorities, a nonprofit known for the influential consumer guidebook Shopping for a Better World.

Paul is a former treasurer of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI) and a former co-chair of its Asset Management Working Group. In addition, Paul serves on the board of the Social Investment Forum. A Chartered Financial Analyst, he holds master’s degrees in anthropology and education from New York University and Roberts Wesleyan College, respectively.

Paul is a frequent commentator on SRI to the financial media. He was co-project lead on the influential UNEP-FI report of the Asset Management Working Group, Fiduciary Responsibility – Legal and Practical Aspects of Integrating Environmental, Social and Governance Issues into Institutional Investment.