Webreview
Bertrand Podevin
M2RS
Webreview on
SRI (socially responsably investing)
SRI is an upcoming phenomenon in capitalism.
Present since the early 1920 in USA and UK, they appear under the religious impulsion and more partucularly under the methodist church rule.
In Usa, following the prohibition state of mind they were a way to select companies in which invest according to a negative screening. It means the exclusion or partial exclusion in their portfolio of companies involved in the production, licensing, and/or retailing of tobacco products, alcohol products, gambling company or companies that derive a significant portion of their revenues from the manufacture or retailing of firearms or ammunitions for civilian use and military weapons.
Broadly, screening include the inclusion or exclusion of companies based on issues of indigenous peoples relations, labor rights, and operations in countries with oppressive regimes, in environmental criterias, in the exclusion of companies based on issues of benefits to economically disavantaged, in companies based on equality and diversity issues surrounding CEO, board of directors, work/life benefits, women and minority contracting, employment of the disabled, or gay and lesbians policies and finally the inclusion or exclusion companies based on issues of charitable giving, innovative giving, non US charitable giving, support for affordable housing, support for education, exceptional volunteer programs, investment controversies, or negative economic impacts.
Obviously, it’s an american cultural archetype : progess it done through the concept of Church.
Historically, sri was developed by secular people and funds during and against the Vietnam War, and more recently in a third step in the early 1980 against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The fourth step was reach in the end of 1990 by a tremendous development of assets in the socially investing funds.
In Europe, the phenomenon is more complexe.
Schematically, their is a fracture of development beetween Northern Europe, majoritirally protestant, and Southern Europe, majoritirally catholics or orthodoxe.
SRI is widespread in UK, which represent more than 60 % of assets invested in socially responsably funds, in Netherlands, where state had defiscalised Sri to push up the phenomenon, and France.
In Germany, Italy, and Spain SRI is near to inexistent, but probably not for the same reasons.
According to me, in Germany it depends on an cultural archetype in the way to regulate capitalism : the cogestion ; and it’s the key of a struggle beetween Anglosaxon capitalism and Rhine capitalism like has to said Michel Albert.
In Spain and Italia, my theoria is that capitalism is not mature to know such a mode of regulation.
In a way it’s like in France, where the first socially investing fund were created in 1983 by the religious association « éthique et investissement » but had been marginal till the end of 1990.
In a situation where capitalism is majoritally family, the mode of regulation is a « communilasization » and in France like in Spain and Italy the cultural archetype is Paternalism whereas in a situation of complexity, the most appropriate regulations seems to be « socialisation » by SRI.
Communalisation against socialisation, capitalism of the Bazzar like said anthropologist Clifford Geertz (capitalism made by interpersonnal relationships and regulations) against capitalism of stock exchange, paternalism against cold rationnality, here’s the amazing struggle playing in the regulation of global capitalism, here in Europe.
We have to underligned the difficulty to make this webreview because there are very few articles dealing with this subject in newspapers all over the world, except reports on SRI gaving by lobbying association for SRI.
A new time, spectacular society is blind to this silent revolution of capitalism.
Title: SRI trends report 2003
Original Page : Pdf on www.socialinvest.org/home
Source : www.socialinvest.org
Source analysis :
National, non-profit membership association of the
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) Industry. Dedicated to advancing the
concept, growth and practice of SRI. Membership includes over 500 social
investment practitioners and institutions.
Socially
responsible investing (SRI) is an investment process that considers the social
and environmental consequences of investments, both positive and negative,
within the context of rigorous financial analysis.
Three Strategies of Socially Responsible Investing:
Screening: The practice of
including or excluding publicly traded securities from investment portfolios or
mutual funds based on social and/or environmental criteria.
Shareholder Advocacy: Actions socially aware
investors take in the role as owners of
corporations, including dialoguing with companies on issues of concern, as well
as filing and voting proxy resolutions
Community Investing: The flow of capital from investors to
communities that are underserved by traditional financial services. It provides
access to credit, equity, capital, and basic banking products.
2003 Trends Report Highlights:
A total of $2.16 trillion in assets were identified
in professionally managed portfolios using one or more of the three core SRI
strategies::Screening, Shareholder Advocacy, Community Investing
More than one out of every nine dollars under professional
management in the United States today is involved in socially responsible investing.
Socially Responsible Investing in the U.S.
$2.16 trillion in 2003.
Assets under management in screened
portfolios counted by this Report totaled $2.14 trillion and rose 7% between 2001 and 2003.
Meanwhile the broader universe of all
professional managed portfolios fell 4% during the same time period.
2003 Trends Socially Screened Portfolios: Assets counted in socially screened separate accounts grew by 7% from
the 2001 to 2003, climbing to $1.99 trillion.
Assets in socially screened mutual funds
were $151 billion, 11% more than the
$136 billion counted in 2001.
2003 Trends Shareholder Advocacy:
Activity: Between January 2001 and June 2003, shareholder resolution filing
increased by 15%,
Social & “crossover” resolutions
rose to 310 in 2003 from 269 in 2001
Assets:
The amount of money controlled by investors involved in shareholder
advocacy decreased from $897 billion in 2001 to $448 billion as of June 2003. Of this:
$7 billion represents assets that are actively involved in shareholder advocacy
only.
$441 billion represents assets are both screened
and leveraged in shareholder advocacy efforts.
This decline in assets is due to the
lack of resolutions filed in the past two years by large funds such as
TIAA-CREF and CALPERS.
Three Types of
Resolutions :
Social Responsibility – address social and
environmental issues
Corporate Governance – address board,
accounting, and executive issues
Crossover -- incorporate both corporate governance and
social policy/corporate responsibility concerns.
Key Shareholder
Successes in 2003:
American Electric Power, Caterpillar,
ConocoPhillips, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Georgia-Pacific, Ingram Micro, Marathon,
MBNA, Mirant, TXU, and Wal-Mart:
American Electric Power, Chevron Texaco,
General Electric, Southern, TXU, ExxonMobil, Staples, Gillette, and Reebok:
Greenhouse gas emissions reductions and reporting and renewable energy
investment.
American Power Conversion, Danaher, Gentex, and Grant Prideco:
Corporate Governance Resolutions:
$900 billion in assets tied to corporate
governance resolutions
Options expensing, poison pill, and
auditing issues have grown in popularity in recent years
Corporate governance resolution assets
are not counted in the Trends Report totals
2003 Trends
Community Investing:
Community Investing grew significantly
to $14 billion in 2003, 84% more than 2001.
Assets in all CDFI-certified vehicles
grew by more than 50% from 2001 to 2003, with the greatest growth among Community Development
Banks, which surged over 130% to $7.2 billion in 2003.
Increasing numbers of SRI professionals
are allocating at least 1% of their investment portfolios under management to
community investing. Today, participating Forum members have dedicated $1 billion in assets to
community investing.
The Impact of Community Investing:
Community investing creates
opportunities for housing, jobs, and social services in low-income communities.
Community investing dollars are at work
in urban and rural communities in the US and abroad.
Community investing helps low-income
individuals and communities take control of their own financial destinies.
Global Trends in SRI:
North America: Tobacco, alcohol, and gambling screens, followed by environmental and
human rights – most common screens; shareholder advocacy growing
Relative Market Size (U.S. $):
Canada: $38.2 billion total in SRI (June
2002), 53 retail mutual funds
U.S.: $2.16 trillion (Dec.2002), 200
mutual funds
Europe: Environmental and labor screens are most popular, shareholder
“engagement” strategy commonly used
Relative Market Size (U.S. $):$260
billion including retail, pension and shareholder adv..
280 retail and institutional funds as of
2001.
Asia ; Community investing active at local
level; environmental screens dominate.
Relative Market Size (U.S. $):Australia:
$14.3 billion
Rest of Asia: $2.5 billion total (Dec.
2002).
L’investissement Socialement Responsable (ISR) est un processus d’investissement qui prend en compte les conséquences sociales et environnementales des investissements financiers, aussi bien positivement que négativement dans un contexte d’analyse financière rigoureuse.
Les trois stratégies
de l’investissement socialement responsable :
Le screening : il s’agit de la pratique d’inclusion ou d’exclusion des valeurs d’un portefeuille financier ou d’un fond de placement basé sur des critères sociaux et/ou environnementaux.
L’actionnariat engagé : les investisseurs socialement responsable se comportent comme les vrais actionnaires des entreprises dans lequels ils investissent ceci incluant un dialogue avec les entreprises sur les sujets qui les concernent aussi bien que le vote et des propositions de résolutions lors des assemblées Générales.
L’investissement dans des communautés délaissés : le flux de capital des investisseurs vers des communautés déshérités par les services financiers traditionnels. Cela fourni un accés au crédit, aux liquidités, au capital et des produits bancaires de base.
On a pu identifier un total de placement
pour une valeur de 2,16 Milliard de dollar, managé professionellement dans des
portefeuilles de valeurs et utilisant un ou plusieurs des trios principales
strategies de l’ISR: le screening, l’actionnariat engagé, l’investissement
communautaire.
Plus d’un dollar sur neuf dans des
placements proessionels aux États Unis est engage en SRI aujourd’hui (2003).
Les valeurs managées dans des portfolios suivant le screening
représentent selon ce rapport un total de 2,14 Milliard et ont progressé de 7%
entre 2001 et 2003. Dans la même période l’univers large des portfolios managés
professionellement a chute de 4%.
Les grandes tendances 2003 des portfolios régis par le screening:
Les valeurs comptées dans des portfolios
séparés et gérés selon le screening ont augmenté de 7% entre 2001 et 2003
grimpant à 1,99 Milliars $
Les valeurs engagées sur des fonds
communs de placements et régis par le screening était de 151 Million de $, 11%
de plus que les 136 Million de $ compté en 2001.
Les grandes tendances 2003 de
l’actionnariat engagé :
L’activité: entre Janvier 2001 et Juin
2003, les resolutions de vote de l’actionnariat engage ont augmentées de 15%.
Les resolutions social et “croisées” ont
augmenté à 310 au lieu de 209 en 2001.
Les valeurs: la somme d’argent
controllée par des investisseurs impliqués dans l’actionnariat engage a décrut
de 897 million $ en 2001 à 448 millions$ en Juin 2003.
De cela il faut decomposer:
7Million$ qui sont activement engagés
dans l’actionnariat engagé seulement.
441 Millions$ représentant des valeurs
engagées autant dans le screening que dans les efforts de bras de levier de
l’actionnariat engagé.
Ce déclin en valeurs est du au manque de
resolutions de vote dans les deux années passées de grands fonds
d’investissement comme TIAA-CREF et CALPERS.
Les trois types de resolutions de votes:
La responsabilité social: elle s’engage sur
des questions sociales et environnementales.
La corporate governance: elle s’engage sur
des questions de comités de direction, de direction financiers et de comités
excecutives.
Le “croisement”: il incorpore autant
la corporate gouvernance que la responsabilité social/ et la responsabilité
corporate.
Les succés clés de l’actionnariat engagés en 2003:
American Electric Power, Caterpillar,
ConocoPhillips, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Georgia-Pacific, Ingram Micro, Marathon,
MBNA, Mirant, TXU, and Wal-Mart:
Politiques de non discrimination des
orientations sexuelles
American Electric Power, Chevron Texaco, General Electric, Southern, TXU, ExxonMobil, Staples, Gillette, and Reebok:
Réductions et reporting des gas à effets de
serres et investissements sur les energies renouvelables.
Diversité des comités exécutifs
Les résolutions en Gouvernance d’entreprise :
900Millions$ de valeurs liés aux résolutions sur la Gouvernance d’entreprise.
Les options d’expensions, pillules de poisons et les questions d’audits ont grandit en popularité ces dernières années.
Les valeurs liés aux résolutions de Gouvernance d’entreprise ne sont pas comptés dans le total de ce rapports sur les tendances.
Les tendances 2003 de l’investissement « communautaires » :
L’investissement communautaire a grandit significativement jusqu’à 14Millions$ en 2003, 84% de plus qu’en 2001.
Les valeurs dans tout les véhicules certifiés CDFI ont grossi de plus de 50% depuis 2001 jusqu’à 2003 au sein des Banques pour le développement des communautés ce qui l’a fait exploser de plus de 130% à 7,2 Millions $ en 2003.
L’impact sur l’investissement communautaire :
L’investissement communautaire a créé des opportunités pour le logement, le travail, les services sociaux dans les communautés à faible revenus.
L’investissement communautaire est effectif dans les communautées urbaines et rural aux USA et ailleurs.
L’investissemnet communautaire aide les individus et les communautés à faible revenus à prendre en main leurs destinées financières.
Les tendances
globales en ISR :
Amérique du Nord : le screening du tabac, de l’alcool et des jeuxest majoritaire suivi par l’environnement et les droits de l’homme le plus souvent en screening et l’actionnariat engagé est en progression.
La taille du marché (US $) : le Canada représente 38,2 Million$ en ISR (juin 2002) et 53 fonds de placements ; les USA 2,16 mille Milliars$ (dec 2002) avec 200 fonds de placements.
Europe : Le screening environnemental et des conditions de travail sont les plus populaires, les stratégies d’actionnariat engagés sont utilisés.
La taille du marché (US $) : 260 Millions$ incluant le détail les fonds de pension et l’actionnariat engagé. 280 fonds communs de placement et institutionnels à la fin 2001.
Asie :L’investissement communautaire est acif à un niveau local et le screening environnemental domine.
La taille du marché (US $) : Australie 14 million $, et 2,5 Milliard$ pour le reste de l’Asie (Dec 2002).
Shareholder advocacy : actionnariat engagé
Community investing : investissement profitant aux communautés défavorisées.
Screening : investissement positif ou négatif selon une ou plusieurs variables.
SRI : ISR, investissement socialement responsable.
Resolution file : motion présenté par un actionnaire lors d’une assemblée générale.
Portfolios :portefeuilles de valeurs boursières (actions, obligations, opvcm….).
http://www.socialinvest.org/sri_trends_report_2003.pdf