How you invest your money can be a vote for the values you want to support—from fairness and equality to safety and sustainability. But how do your mutual funds try to make difference in the world?
There are three strategies that mutual funds have been using for years:
1. Divestment
Avoid objectionable companies
For many years, funds relied on divestment. They avoided investing in certain companies or industries, like tobacco or more recently, fossil fuels.
Divestment is still an important tool, but most investors want to do more than just avoid ‘bad apples’; they want to actively support companies that are trying to do the right thing.
2. Investment
Seek out companies that are trying to make a positive impact
Today, many funds invest in companies that have strong environmental, social or corporate governance policies (ESG). This is a way for the fund to mitigate risk. A company that is mismanaged could end up facing major fines or lawsuits. And importantly, it also allows fund investors to put their money behind the kinds of companies they want to support.
3. Engagement
Work with companies to help them move forward
Perhaps the most important way that funds are making a difference is by tapping into their power as shareholders. When you invest in a company, you get a say in how that company operates: you can file shareholder resolutions to try to change how a company operates, and you can vote on these proposals at shareholder meetings, and that’s exactly what many funds do. They invest in a company with the goal of engaging with the company and helping it do better.
How fund companies have made a positive impact
Investors have filed hundreds of proposals over the years, and these efforts have led to some real results. They have persuaded hundreds of companies to make significant improvements.
Here are just a few of success stories:
✔ Fewer harmful chemicals in children’s products
Domini Impact Investments engaged with Target to encourage the company to reduce the use of toxic PVC plastic in children’s products, and soon other major retailers, like Walmart and Sears, followed suit. Today, Target has a sustainable product standard that scores 7,000 products based on toxicity.
✔ More efficient energy use
Calvert Research and Management has prioritized engagement with electric utilities and 53 major corporations have committed to source 100% of their power from renewable energy in the next two decades.
✔ Smarter use of natural resources
Trillium Asset Management engaged with Home Depot, which was one of the world’s largest retailers of old-growth lumber at the time. Home Depot agreed to use more sustainably sourced wood, and by 2009, Home Depot had sold more Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified wood than any other company in North America.