Responsible Investing at Remington University

1
Responsible Investing at Remington University

• Presentation to
• President Neuweg

2
Who we are

• A group of concerned students
• Supporting faculty
• Remington Chamber of Commerce
• Remington Association of Non-profit Agencies

3
The Context of Investment at the University

• Business is for profit, and profit is for a
  purpose.
  
• Our profit is for a purpose We will refer to
  this as responsible profit.
  
• We would like to ask the President of this
  university to provide us with an evaluation of
  the current impact of its financial operations on
  the community, the staff, and the environment.

4
Let us consider

• Are our university investments socially
  responsible? What are the investments of the
  university? How are decisions made about
  investments?
• What is responsible investment? How should we
  change our investments?
  

5
From our website
but are we socially responsible?
6
Corporate Social Responsibility

• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is "the
  continuing commitment by business to behave
  ethically and to contribute to economic
  development while improving the quality of life
  of the workforce and their families as well as of
  the local community and society at large."
• --World Business Council for Sustainable
  Development

7
Criteria for responsible investing

• Alcohol
• Animal testing
• Community investment
• Community relations
• Military/ weapons
• Employment equity
• environment

• Gambling
• Human Rights
• Indigenous Rights
• Labor Relations
• Products/services
• Tobacco
• www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/

8
Problematic Investing

• DuPont manufactures teflon (emits toxic gas)
• Exxon unrenewable oil production
• Safeway anti-labor (no health insurance)
• Halliburton defrauded US govt (no bid jobs),
  weapons
  
• Bayer defrauding medicaid students used in
  testing pesticide
  
• Boeing deals w/ Pentagon, fraud
• Merrill Lynch stock fraud
• -- http//multinationalmonitor.org

9
Recommended Investments

• Coors meeting needs of Hispanic community
• Ben Jerrys social audit of investments made
  public
  
• Campbells Soup shareholder involvement in
  cooperate decisions
  
• Starbucks 1996 award for International Human
  Rights (coffee grown w/o exploitation)
  
• McDonalds community activities minority
  millionaires
  
• - www.goodmoney.com

10
Socially Responsible Investments

• 25 of 100 SRI funds had a 10 or higher annual
  growth in 2006.
  
• -www.socialinvest.org

11
Other Areas for Responsible Investment

• Incubatorsstart and grow new industry.
• Housinginvest in low-cost high-quality housing.
• Support of researchmonitor support of research
  funds.
  
• License Intellectual Propertysupport university
  researchers.
  
• Ethical choice of university vendorsto maximize
  ecological, social, and economic effect.