Al Gore to speak at Social Investment Forum Conference next week

Next week, Barb Brown and Margie Flynn are attending the Social Investment Forum 2011 Conference: “Responsible Investing: Impact & Innovation” at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Al Gore, Chairman and Co-founder of Generation Investment Management, is the keynote speaker at the Conference Kickoff dinner on June 9. GIM is a partnership focused on a new approach to sustainable investing. Mr. Gore has many accolades and credits to his name, and no doubt will be interesting to listen to.

BrownFlynn is proud to be a sponsor of this year’s SIF Conference, and feels it will be a worthwhile and informative event. UBS is the lead sponsor, with other sponsors such as Bloomberg, PAX, MSCI, Calvert, Boston Common Asset Management, TIAA-CREF, Towers Watson, Walden Asset Management, Campbell’s, Nasdaq OMX and more.  Some speakers include:

• Elizabeth Warren, Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Luis Aguilar, Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
• Janet Cowell, State Treasurer, North Carolina
• Michael Jantzi, CEO, Sustainalytics
• Roger Urwin, Global Head of Investment Content, Towers Watson
• Dave Stangis, Vice President of CSR and Sustainability, Campbell Soup Company

For more information about the conference and to register (there’s still time!) please click here. Hope to see you there!

Microsoft in the spotlight

Last week I received a must read article from Michael Muyot, Founder and President of CRDAnalytics, about Microsoft’s proxy vote coming up on 11/16/2010. He prefaced the article by saying it’s a “very real and tangible result of the integration of social media with quantitative measurement of sustainable investment performance.”

Shareholder resolutions filed with Microsoft, Oracle and Cisco by Harrington Investments are now in a digestable format and have been delivered to the country’s major university endowments and TIAA-CREF for participation. The point is that ignoring investor concerns is bad for business and can have negative impacts on the market.

Peter DeSimone and Heidi Walsh established Sustainable Investments Institute SI2 in January 2010, providing impartial analysis of CR issues raised in shareholder-sponsored proxy proposals. SI2 recently issued an Active Report on Sustainability Reporting, focusing on Microsoft. The Report looks at the proposal of activist investor John Harrington, who wants the company to amend its bylaws to establish a board committee on environmental sustainability. He’s quoted as saying: “to assess and make recommendations to enhance, the Company’s policy responses to changing conditions and knowledge of the natural environment…” 

Microsoft’s response: the proposal is unnecessary because it already has a board committee that oversees its corporate responsibility issues, including environmental matters. CRDAnalytics removed Microsoft from the NASDAQ Global Sustainability Index because of “inadequate disclosure of environmental metrics”. Harrington believes this damaged Microsoft’s reputation, but thinks it can recover by adopting this proxy.

Ultimately, asset owners/managers and investors have been increasing the pressure on corporate boards and managers through the proxy/election process to encourage change in corporate behavior. These investors are focused on environmental performance data and sustainability reporting.

Many experts predicted that investors would demand non-financial reporting – why do you think large companies like Microsoft are still hesistant to report substantial and tangible data, hence listening to their investors? Do you think government-mandated non-financial reporting will soon follow? Discuss!

For the full SI2 action report, please click here.