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Remembering Nelson Mandela December 6th, 2013
We would like to share this tribute to Nelson Mandela from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Friends,
Today the ICCR community mourns the loss of Nelson Mandela, champion for equality and human rights, peacemaker and icon of hope for reconciliation and justice. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and countrymen.
Forty-three years ago, witnessing the selfless struggle of Mandela and others who rejected the inequality and racism symbolized by the apartheid system, faith-based investors continents away were inspired to partner with the freedom movement by using their collective voice as shareholders to help bring economic pressure to bear against the South African government. It was in seeking the end of apartheid that ICCR first forged its beginning, and helped give birth to the shareholder advocacy movement as recalled in this podcast by one of ICCR’s founders, Paul Neuhauser.
Mandela’s quiet tenacity continues to give promise to the oppressed, enslaved, and exploited the world over and his legendary humility and commitment to genuine reconciliation are at the core of ICCR’s mission and always will be. With an estimated 21 million men, women and children worldwide still enslaved, we are united in our shared responsibility to continue to fight against injustice wherever and whenever we encounter it. This was Mandela’s lifelong message and his passing will not diminish its relevance in our world.
As Mandela said, “After climbing a great hill, one only finds many more to climb.” With his spirit to guide us, we will continue to bear witness, to testify, to advocate and raise our voices for justice…we will continue the climb in his name.
Godspeed!
Laura Berry
Executive Director
On behalf of the grateful members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Asia’s Largest Agribusiness Company Adopts Policy to Protect Forests and Communities December 6th, 2013
Wilmar, Asia’s largest agribusiness company, commits to No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation, No High Carbon Stock, Traceable Sourcing Policy for both its own plantations and third party suppliers.
Photo courtesy of Greenpeace
Wilmar, Asia’s largest agribusiness company, which controls 45 percent of the global palm oil trade, has issued a new policy to protect forests, respect human rights, and enhance community livelihood. The company joined consumer products’ leader Unilever, in committing to a “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation, No High Carbon Stock, Traceable Sourcing Policy” for both its own plantations and third party suppliers. NGOs working on the issue, led by Climate Advisers and The Forest Trust (TFT), say the initiative has the potential to dramatically cut deforestation and climate pollution, while boosting prosperity.
This policy follows a decade of aggressive and effective advocacy for sustainable and responsible palm oil by nonprofit organizations around the world. Recently, activist shareholders concerned about sustainability issues, including the Missionary Oblates, sent letters asking for policy changes to to 40 major palm oil producers, financiers and consumers including Wilmar, Golden Agri Resources, Unilever, and HSBC. The letters were coordinated by Green Century Capital Management and were signed by major institutional investors from the U.S. and Europe representing approximately $270 billion in assets under management.
The announcement represents a vital new approach for Wilmar International, which in addition to its importance in the palm oil trade, is a significant player in other commodities like sugar and soybeans. The announcement sets a responsible path forward for one of the most environmentally intensive commodities on earth.
Wilmar’s policy on palm oil is available online here.
The policy includes numerous provisions to change the way commodities are sourced:
- No Deforestation: No more cutting down the rainforest for agricultural production.
- No Exploitation: Protect the rights of workers and communities, including the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.
- Protects High Carbon Stock landscape, including peatlands of any depth.
- Protects High Conservation Value forests: No more clearing of forests that are habitat for endangered species, such as orangutans, Sumatran tigers, elephants, and rhinos.
Palm oil is a $50 billion a year commodity that makes its way into half of all consumer goods on the shelves. It is in chocolate, baked goods, soaps, detergents, and much more. U.S. imports have increased almost fivefold over the past decade. 85 percent of palm oil is grown on industrial plantations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea, home of some of the largest remaining rainforests in the world. Clearing tropical forests for these plantations threatens the world’s last Sumatran tigers, as well as orangutans, elephants, rhinos and the tens of millions of people who depend on these rainforests to survive. Because of deforestation, Indonesia is the third largest emitter of global warming pollution in the world, behind only China and the United States.
Save Honeybees Now! December 3rd, 2013
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The Pope Speaks out on the Economy December 3rd, 2013
Fr. Seamus Finn, OMI was interviewed today by The Lay Catholic on the Pope’s recent exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel.
“…Father Finn said the last two decades in the United States have witnessed a “growth in wealth in assets for the top 1 percent and stagnation of wages and assets for the middle class,” resulting in “widening gaps between a very, very small number of people at the top, a middle class that’s holding its own, and an impoverished sector that is barely hanging on and very dependent on the charity of others.”
“Father Finn said Pope Francis’ portrayal of the ideological struggle over state intervention in the economy is realistic, as exemplified by current debates in the U.S.”
“We have a whole number of folks who are saying, let’s shrink the size of government, let’s let the market and the private sector come up with and propose solutions,” particularly in the education and health care sectors, he said. “And we’ve got lots of other people saying, that’s leaving a lot of collateral damage out there. Who’s responsible for it?”
ICCR Shareholders Engage JP Morgan Chase at Annual Shareholder Meeting November 24th, 2013
L to R: Fr. Seamus Finn, OMI (Missionary Oblates); Sr Valerie Heinonen, OSU (Mercy Investments); Cathy Rowan (Maryknoll Sisters); Sr. Nora Nash (Sisters of St Francis of Philadelphia); Sr. Barbara Aires, SC (Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, NJ); Fr Joe La Mar, MM (Maryknoll); Mariela Vargova (Rockefeller Brothers); Sr Pat Daly, OP
Shareholders from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility engaged JP Morgan Chase at a meeting last Monday in New York on a broad range of issues from risk management to foreclosures and other business practices. On November 19, the bank finalized a $13 billion settlement agreement with the US Justice Department over “alleged bad behavior relating to mortgages and mortgage-backed bonds,” as Marketplace reports.
Brief background:
JP Morgan Chase bought up Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns after they went under in the financial crisis of 2007-08. All three institutions, along with other banks, had bundled hundreds of home loans into securities and marketed them as investments that could be traded like stocks. When millions of homeowners defaulted on their mortgages and the housing market collapsed, the value of the securities took a nose dive and the economy went into a tailspin. Responsibility for the meltdown is still being apportioned, while hundreds of thousands of families lost their homes. ICCR investors hope that some of those who suffered in the financial crisis will benefit from the settlement.
Part of the $4 billion for consumers would go toward helping some homeowners whose mortgages are handled by JPMorgan. Unusually for such settlements, another share would be used to reduce blight in neighborhoods peppered by rundown and abandoned homes.
