Do you have cutting edge research to communicate or experience in sustainaible investment that you would like to share? We are now accepting proposals for the upcoming TBLI Conference in Bangkok in May 2007.  We currently have 45% of the speaker's slots filled for TBLI Asia in Bankok 24-25 May 2007.  Currently, European and North American presentations are overrepresented.  To acheive a greater balance of perspectives, priority will be given to presenations from asian financial organizations and sustainable investment professionals.  If you or your organization would like to submit a presentation, please go to our conference page.  Registration for the conference will be opened in February.

Please don't forget that Brooklyn Bridge moved!  Do to our recent expansion, we have taken a new location for our office in Amsterdam.  Please note our new office address and phone number:

ABSTRACT: While it is common knowledge that a large number of NGOs and foundations do not invest their money according to sustainaible and socially responsible priciples, to what degree do these investments undermine their primary goals and operating missions?  This invstigative report by the LA Times looks at one example of this paradox through the case of one of the largest global grant making entities, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. (HTML Link, free registration may be required.)

UN-NGLS Development Dossier
Debating NGO Accountability

by Jem Bendell

'Concerns about the role and accountability of NGOs have been voiced from different quarters in recent years. Some donors, governments, corporations, and international agencies raise important questions about the effectiveness of NGO work and the legitimacy of their advocacy. Some NGOs have also recognized the need to ensure good practice in the wider voluntary sector. For this emerging agenda to lead to positive development outcomes, we need to ask what initiatives will improve the accountability of all institutions to the people whose lives they shape, and what initiatives could serve merely to undermine NGOs’ useful and largely accepted role in holding business and government accountable for their actions.'
Click here to read the whole article.

Feature articles focus on current trends and investment opportunities in the field of SRI, TBLI and Corporate Governance, offering a source of new information and insights.

Do you have an idea for an article, or would like to submit an article for publication? Please send a letter to the editor.

Some feel that when you are on a roll you can sit back and enjoy the coffee. I believe that when you are getting traction, you step on the gas. You pull out all the stops and put even greater effort. Resistance and friction is waning, so you get more accomplished with less effort. TBLI is taking root, significantly. The idea of being able to manage all investments with a sustainability lens, including social and environmental added value and competitive market returns, is slowly becoming a reality. We are far from finished, but the ‘herd’ is starting to move.

For the past 10+ years, I have tried to convince the business community, particularly the financial community, of the self-interest inherent in sustainable investing when using a portfolio approach. The financial community often moves in ‘packs’ or a ‘herd’. When I started Brooklyn Bridge and the first TBLI Conference, I was also creating the perception of a herd, because there was no herd at the time. It was similar to a gasoline fire. It burns bright and then dies out quickly, but it does get attention. Now, it is no longer necessary to do that. The financial community is seeing the self-interest of sustainable financial products and services. TBLI is becoming part of the DNA of the organization.

There has been unbelievable progress in institutionalizing sustainable investment, or what some analysts like to call ‘extra financial investing’. Many are quite surprised as to the rapid shift. I am not. I have found that if you are given the opportunity to speak to truly professional people and they are willing to listen, you can get the message across. Fundamentally, if one is given the opportunity to achieve market returns, and have a positive societal and environmental impact, most will choose this. The only issue is that they are provided with that choice.

The stone has been rolled up the hill and is nearly at the top of the hill. We just need that extra effort. Will you help, so we all benefit? Who knows, we might even get the grant making foundations and endowments to make significant progress in managing their assets according to TBLI principles. In any event, don't stop now, the water is nearly flowing and the stone will move by its own momentum. Let's make it happen in 2007!

Last year a man named Paul Scott called me. It was rather an odd phone call, because he just called to help. He didn't want anything. In fact, after he offered to help promote TBLI, I said we could do an exchange for attendance. A short while later, he contacted me and apologized for not doing enough to promote TBLI and refused to take me up on my barter. He said, “I don't deserve it.”  I was thinking who is this guy? I finally met Paul last week, on a trip to London. Paul is our angel of the Month.

Paul Scott has been working in the field of environmental / CSR reporting since 1990, developing and commenting on reports, and more recently, judging them. Paul is a judge on the ACCA Sustainability Awards panel, the ACCA Electronic Media Commendation panel, and is the UK representative on the European Environmental and Social Reporting Awards panel. He has been increasingly involved in stakeholder dialogue and facilitation. Paul also founded Next Step Consulting and the Corporate Register.

One of the things that really surprised me was that he established ‘Green Drinks’. This is a pub-networking event for people interested in meeting other people to share experiences around environmental issues. Started in 1989, there are now 160 chapters all over the world.

Paul is modest, extremely generous and he keeps the space lively. Congratulations Paul on being our angel of the month!

The outlook for sustainable investment is promising, but tenuous.  The growth of the past decade is poised to continue as long as investors, financial professionals, and corporate managers can maintain the momentum of recent trends.  However, there are multiple factors that will influence investor demand, corporate motivation, and political will.  The influence of significant events, such as corporate scandals, environmental catastrophes, technological breakthroughs, and political shifts, still has the ability to propel or slow sustainable investment growth.  In the end these factors all add to or detract from the consumer demand, both retail and institutional, for sustainable investments. Ultimately, this is what will determine the final outcome for the sustainable investment industry.

In the issue you'll find a variety of perspectives on the SRI industry including an exclusive interview with First Affirmative Financial Network CEO, George Gay.  Also you'll find articles by long-time SRI leader Tim Smith who writes about the recent proxy/shareholder resolution season; Tim Freundlich provides an update on fast-growing community investing; and, we look at some international SRI mutual funds as well as at the new SRI 401(K) product, Social(K). Anne Firth Murray, founder of the Global Fund for Women, writes about her new book, "Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change."

This study provides an essential tool for investment analysts and policy-makers to evaluate the relative financial returns on the use of environmental capital between sectors and companies.  ADVANCE (Application and Dissemination of Value-Based Eco-Ratings in Financial Markets) is an international project supported by the LIFE Environment programme. (Full information available at http://www.advance-project.org) ADVANCE applies the Sustainable Value-concept on a large European scale for the first time. The Sustainable Value-concept allows to assess and to manage sustainable performance similar to economic performance. For this purpose it makes use of the tools and techniques used in the financial markets to assess and manage economic capital.'

TBLI ASIA

BANGKOK, THAILAND

24-25 MAY 2007

Landmark Hotel

TBLI Europe

PARIS, FRANCE

15-16 November 2007

Palais Brongniart

If you would like to post a job opening, email jobs@tbli.org. Please be sure to include an Internet link that can be posted so that interested applicants can obtain more information.

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