The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 27, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0227/p14s01-wmgn.html
The power of nun:
taking a lead role in shareholder
activism
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Correspondent of The
Christian Science Monitor
As a shareholder representative who believes in good pay
for bottom-rung workers, Ruth Rosenbaum occasionally reminds corporate
executives across the table from her that she has a doctorate in
economics. In other words, she knows something about business.
But she may get more clout sometimes, she says, when she tells them
something more personal: She's a nun.
That's partly because living under vows carries with it a certain moral
authority, she says, even in plush boardrooms. It's also because nuns
are well-connected in ways that can stir even high-powered executives to
action.
"Companies will say, 'We have this program in country X' " to address a
local problem, says Sister Rosenbaum. "And I have no qualms about
saying, 'We have sisters, or we know sisters, operating there. I'd like
to talk with them to get some feedback about how this program really
works on the ground.' Just saying that anchors the dialogue in a deeper
reality."
In one niche of a financial world known for crisp suits and material
passions, nuns in modest business attire have emerged as an unlikely
group of senior stateswomen. Their role, earned through three decades of
private-sector activism, has become one of representing both
shareholders and the poor, whom they believe feel the impact of
corporate policies most intensely.
As investors gear up for hundreds of shareholder meetings over the next
four months, nearly half of the first 299 resolutions filed reflect the
initiatives of religious investors. In this faith-filled milieu,
newcomers to ethical investing are sometimes surprised to see the
field's activism led by dozens of nuns and more than 100 orders of
religious women, who invest their communal funds with higher goals in
mind.
In 2004, Bill Mills launched the Good Steward Fund, a fund of hedge
funds that caters to an ethically minded clientele. But he says he had
no social mission of his own until last year, when he attended a meeting
of faith-based investors in Philadelphia hosted by the Sisters of St.
Francis. "As I got to know these folks, they would say [such things as],
'Sister over there was very instrumental in the first campaign against
Philip Morris,' " says Mr. Mills, a Birmingham, Ala., entrepreneur. He
knew that social investing had won a number of successes over the years,
but says he was inspired "by getting to know the individuals who in fact
had made all that happen by virtue of their commitment.... I realized
... how much more there was to do and could be accomplished."
Today's investors owe a debt of gratitude to the sisters who laid the
groundwork for dozens of shareholder proposals on this season's proxy
voting ballots, say some long-time participants in ethical investing.
Investors "who are concerned about how to express their opinions to
[companies] are given an opportunity by sisters and others in the faith
community to vote on shareholder resolutions on specific issues," says
Tim Smith, president of the Social Investment Forum, a network of
socially responsible investors. "So it's a platform that's been provided
to them."
Nuns routinely work behind the scenes. Sometimes religious orders own
stock in a firm and send a nun to represent their social agenda. Nuns
also head groups of religious investors, who stand to get a better
hearing as a group than they would alone.
Victories don't come often, and marshalling support from even 20 percent
of shareholders on a ballot issue can take years. Even so, nuns have
seen some successes. Last month, for instance, New York attorney general
Eliot Spitzer credited a nun and her allies with persuading General
Electric to disclose the $122 million it spent on lobbying, public
relations, and legal fees fighting efforts to clean three contaminated
sites in New York, Massachusetts, and Georgia.
Sometimes activist sisters have to get their hands dirty. An Alcoa
shareholders meeting in 1996 included low-level Mexican employees who
had watched the company pollute local water sources and had routinely
found bathrooms locked during breaks. Their exchange with management
happened with help from Sr. Susan Mika, a Texan Benedictine who had used
religious connections to visit Mexico, take notes, and round up a crew
of witnesses. Soon after the meeting, Alcoa's CEO visited the Mexican
site, fired the regional manager, raised workers' pay, and unlocked the
bathrooms.
For Sister Mika, such activism on behalf of religious investors builds
directly on her previous work as a mother superior for 18 nuns in the
monastery at Boerne, Texas. All of it, she says, has been part of her
calling to live by the simple, work- and prayer-focused Rule of St.
Benedict. "Benedictines are very big on stewardship," Mika says. As
investors, that means encouraging "sustainable" treatment of all human
and natural resources. She sums up the approach as, "We have the Rule in
one hand and the Wall Street Journal in the other."
Far away, in New York City, Sr. Patricia Wolf found her way into ethical
investing after eight years of teaching, first at an East Harlem junior
high school and later at a correctional facility for boys. In 1975, with
nudging from the president of the Sisters of Mercy, she explored how the
religious order might channel investments into needy communities.
"It was like this eye-popping moment for me," she recalls. "Whole
communities were excluded from loans. Banks were buying up blighted
communities. [The experience] taught me a way of systemic thinking" that
now informs her work as executive director of the Interfaith Center for
Corporate Responsibility. It is a 30-year-old coalition of 275
faith-based institutional investors whose combined assets exceed $110
billion.
Like Mika, Sister Wolf sees shareholder activism as a natural outgrowth
of her religious order's ideals. In her case, the Sisters of Mercy
emphasize justice for the poor. Example: At Wolf's suggestion, the
Bronx-based Sisters of Mercy bought stock in Synagro, a fertilizer
pelletmaker with a plant in the Bronx, in order to lean on them to clean
up emissions caused by burning New York City sewage in the pelletmaking
process.
Some nuns point out that the sisterhood entails varied labors for the
glory of God. While some feed the hungry and others advocate for
humanitarian programs, a third group - the shareholder activists - aims
to change entrenched structures that, in their view, perpetuate
injustice.
"It's part of who we are," says Rosenbaum. "It's not enough [to feed the
poor]. We have to say, 'What needs to change so they're able to feed
themselves?' "
Today, sisters are pushing firms to look into the costs that HIV/AIDs
and global warming could have on their businesses and industries. As
they press on these and other issues, the sisters remind observers that
for them, even the best business practices will always be just a means
to a higher end. "It's a not a calling to corporate responsibility,"
Wolf says. "It's a calling to an expression of commitment in service to
the poor." |
