Anyone who has worked in business knows that there are no „black or white‟ enterprises in terms of ethics: all, just like the humans working in them, have shades of grey. So when the Church invests it needs to look carefully to ensure that our investments are in line with our values, as best as can be achieved.
The Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG), of which I have been a member for the past 11 years, does this work, and guides the Church Commissioners, the Pensions Fund and the CBF Investment Fund managed by CCLA Investment Management to structure their investments accordingly. It is my hope that many more funds compliant with the EIAG policy could provide parishes and individuals with more choice, but that will depend on the progress of my Private Members Motion to license the ethical policy for use by other fund managers.
The EIAG maintains a list of restricted investments and an active engagement program with companies to encourage best practice in a wide range of areas. Investment sectors are given particular focus: we have exclusions in Tobacco, Defence, Alcohol, Pornography and areas of Financial Services. We also have an active corporate governance policy for voting on company resolutions, and give guidance on specific stocks as the need arises: for example, Vedanta, from which we advocated disinvestment in 2010, which has led to significant changes for the company, and BP following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Senior executives from companies attend special meetings from time to time: for example, John Varley of Barclays.
Detailed review work is under way in a number of areas at present, including Financial Services and Alcohol, where we are particularly keen to bear down on abuse. This means looking carefully at retailing, where we have significant experience on issues such as supermarkets‟ relationship with farmers and Sunday trading. It was following the EIAG report on the former that the Government decided to establish an ombudsman to investigate concerns.
The EIAG regularly arranges fringe meetings at General Synod - do try to attend and lend your voice to our deliberations. We also hope to have a debate on this important area of Christian witness during 2011.
Gavin Oldham, Oxford
