Climate-Friendly Reinvestment: Opportunities and Challenges
As part of our efforts to incorporate climate considerations across our portfolio, the investment committee of the UUCEF has recently shifted some of our fixed-income investments to bond managers who include environmental factors in their decision-making process. These managers buy “green bonds” (those designed to support climate protection and other environmental initiatives) whenever possible. But […]
Climate Advocacy Success at Statoil
In late September, Norway’s Statoil ASA decided to shelve a multibillion-dollar oil sands project in northern Alberta for three years. The company’s decision came after intensive engagement with social investment firm Boston Common Asset Management (BCAM), one of the UUA’s managers. BCAM invested some of our portfolio in Statoil, and used that position to press […]
UUA President Responds to ALEC Attack
Last Friday, October 17, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) sent out an email asking their supporters for funds to fight the “smear campaign” waged against them by the Unitarian Universalist Church. ALEC claims that we UUs wish to “silence competing ideas and speech” because we have shone a light on their secretive activities to […]
UUA Targeted by ALEC
As those who attended the 2014 GA heard from our Treasurer, Tim Brennan, two of our advocacy successes of the last year were persuading Visa, Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline to cease funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a conservative lobbying group that routinely seeks to obstruct or reverse progress on environmental and social issues: for […]
Climate March Q&A
Climate change is happening, and faster than scientists expected. Polar ice caps are melting faster, island nations are going underwater, the ocean is acidifying and warming. In the US, we are suffering catastrophic droughts from California to Texas, along with severe flooding in the East. The answer is to stop burning fossil fuels, but the […]
Google Cuts Ties with ALEC Over Climate Change
Yesterday in an interview on the Diane Rhem Show, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt announced that Google will pull its support form the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Speaking about ALEC, Eric Schmidt said: “The facts of climate change are not in question anymore. Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are […]
Investors Call for Climate Action
UUA Joins World’s Leading Institutional Investors In Call For Carbon Pricing, Ambitious Global Climate Deal. We, the institutional investors that are signatories to this Statement, are acutely aware of the risks climate change presents to our investments. In addition, we recognise that significant capital will be needed to finance the transition to a low carbon economy […]
August Monthly Commentary
Major asset classes mostly gained in August as volatility that crept into the marketplace in late July receded amid light late-summer trading. Global bond yields inched lower on the month, highlighted by German Bund 10-year yields hitting record lows at 0.88%. US Treasury yields followed suit despite modestly positive economic news, providing a further tailwind […]
UUA Joins Other Investors Calling for SEC to Require Publicly Traded Corporations to Fully Disclose All Political Spending
Today the Unitarian Universalist Association joined other investors in calling on the US Securities and Exchange Commission to to take immediate steps to require publicly traded corporations to fully disclose all political spending to their shareholders. Read the full press release from the Corporate Reform Coalition here. The UUA has for several years used its stock holdings […]
September Monthly Commentary
Over the course of this year we have noted that divergent global central banking policies will likely have a dramatic effect on the near term investment landscape. This notion was on display in September as the Federal Reserve appeared steadfast in its plan to wind down quantitative easing while the European Central Bank announced partial […]