Task Force on Socially and Environmentally Responsible Investing Issues Report and Recommendations

September 29, 2015

The Diocesan Task Force on Socially and Environmentally Responsible Investing has now published its report, titled in full Bearing Witness: Report of the Task Force on Socially and Environmentally Responsible Investing, together with the resolutions which it will ask delegates to approve at the November 14 Diocesan Convention.

Both report and resolutions are available on this web page.

2015 Socially and Environmentally
Responsible Investing Task Force
Recommendations (Resolution)

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Summary of the Task Force’s Recommendations

(please click on links above to see the full text of the report and the full text of the resolutions for more detail/precise wording)

•     The diocese should establish a community development investment program.
•     The diocese should adopt sustainable investing as an institutional investment policy goal.
•     The diocese should sign on to the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment.
•     Each governing board in the diocese should carry out a review of its own investment policies and practices for investment management in light of its understanding of the Church’s faith and mission, develop ethical guidelines for investing, and consider divesting from fossil fuel companies, particularly coal companies.  This applies to the Diocesan Trustees, to the Trustees of the DIT, to the board of every other institution related to the diocese, and to the governing board (vestry) of every parish.
•     The diocese should divest from companies in the coal business.

Background:

At the 237th Diocesan Convention (2013), a resolution was passed asking the Bishop, in consultation with the Committee on the Environment and the Diocesan Investment Trust, to appoint a task force to study the merits of socially and environmentally responsible investing for the diocese.

The task force made an interim report to the Diocesan Convention of 2014, and will present its recommendations, in the form of the report made available here, and the resolutions also available here, to the Diocesan Convention of 2015.