Investing the Rights Way: A Guide for Investors on Business and Human Rights
An overview of key business and human rights developments relevant to investors, with a detailed explanation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, including an explanation of their relevance to investors and suggested questions to companies; an overview of other relevant standards, guidelines and tools that complement and reinforce the UN Guiding Principles, organised by group, context and sector; and an overview of corporate accountability and reporting with regard to business and human rights, focusing on issues of relevance to investors.
Adasina Social Capital Installment 6: Dismantling Systemic Barriers for Black Asset Managers
Part of a series of articles, in this installment, Rachel J. Robasciotti, Founder and CEO of Adasina Social Capital identifies systemic problems in due diligence process and proposes solutions.
Stardust Equity Due Diligence
A diligence tool assessing firms’ commitments to combating the unconscious biases that prevent women and BIPOC from achieving their full potential and creating an organizational culture that equally values and promotes diverse talent.
Asking the Right Questions to Guide Investments in Closing Racial Wealth Gaps
To determine which investments they make, Living Cities starts by asking themselves a series of questions whenever they evaluate a new transaction.
Policy, Structure and Process
PRI's guide provides a quick summary of how an investor can develop and implement a responsible investment policy and related processes. It covers how to embed responsible investment into an organisation’s structure and processes – starting with the investment policy.
Two Lenses, One Vision: Investing for LGBTQI and Gender Equity
This report from Cornerstone Capital Group makes the case for this thematic fusion, discussing how investors and asset managers can consider LGBTQI alongside gender equity in their investment analysis, and highlights existing investment strategies that reflect this approach.
Illinois State Treasurer's Office Sustainability Investment Policy Statement
Illinois State Treasurer's Office Sustainability Investment Policy Statement
Guiding the Equality Fund's Investment Strategy Part 2 (From Playbook: Investing in Gender Equality)
Forming bridges amongst feminist activists and economists and allies with gender-lens investment expertise, part of a six-part blog series that explores why and how an investment program is an essential part of the Equality Fund’s work to shift power to women, youth, girls, and non-binary people around the world. Through the lens of six “P”s (Purpose, People and Partners, Perspectives, Process, Philosophy and Products), the Equality Fund shares their approach to gender-lens investing and illuminate the values, strategy, and structure that guide it.
The Just Imperative - MacArthur Foundation
Mission statement: The Just Imperative requires that we interrogate our decisions and actions to ensure that they enhance the conditions in which justice can thrive; rejecting and challenging the structures, systems, and practices that reinforce an unjust status quo, or produce unjust outcomes.
Moving from Intention to Impact: Funding Racial Equity to Win
From Policy Link: Moving from Intention to Impact: Funding Racial Equity to Win, a joint PolicyLink-Bridgespan study analyzes the state of funding for racial equity work. Among a host of important findings, the report offers two key takeaways to funders who want to be generative members of the racial equity ecosystem. First, accountability, a necessity of racial equity work, is impossible without rigorous and transparent reporting. Second, funders must trust and defer to the articulated needs of movement leaders and fund the work that movement leaders say is needed to achieve enduring change.
Integrating Racial Equity into Total Portfolio Activation
This paper offers a synopsis of the evolution from community development and ESG investing to the emergence of investing explicitly with a racial equity lens, proposes a definition for racial equity investing, and presents emerging opportunities across asset classes for investors. This report is supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation & Trillium Asset Management.
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance: Racial Diversity and Investment
Whilst gender diversity has been a growing priority for several years, investors have not approached racial diversity with similar enthusiasm and urgency. The topic of racial diversity in the investment industry was recently raised in an open letter in the UK from a group called Black Women in Asset Management, challenging the industry to move beyond statements on solidarity and anti-racism. The extensive Black Lives Matter protests, catalysed by the killing of George Floyd, have highlighted our interdependence in the midst of a global health crisis and the urgent need for action. It is time to ask what institutional investors can do to address the increasingly evident racial iniquities and their inconsistency with commitments to responsibility in business and investment.
Racial Equity Action Plans: A How-to Manual
Racial Equity Plans are both a process and a product. A successful process will build staff capacity which can be valuable during implementation. A process can also serve to familiarize more staff with the jurisdiction’s racial equity vision and its theory of change. This manual from GARE provides guidance for local governments to develop their own Racial Equity Action Plans after a period of research and information gathering. This manual also provides guidance and tools to conduct this research.
Diversity and Inclusion in the Financial Sector: Working Together to Drive Change
This Discussion Paper (DP) is issued by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as well as the Bank of England (the Bank) in its capacity of supervising financial market infrastructure firms (FMI). They have published this DP to engage financial firms and other stakeholders in a discussion on how they can accelerate the pace of meaningful change and what role they can most usefully play to support this change. The DP reiterates why diversity and inclusion is important for our objectives, explores how to build on existing requirements to support and monitor progress in the UK financial sector. The regulators are working together to clarify their regulatory approach to diversity and inclusion in pursuit of our statutory objectives and having due regard to our Public Sector Equality Duty. This discussion will support their engagement with stakeholders and policy development, helping to determine which interventions could have the greatest impact.
A Blueprint for Revamping the Minority Business Development Agency
Across the United States, small businesses are a significant source of employment and provide a variety of goods and services. For those who are fortunate enough to own a small business, they can also offer a pathway to wealth building and prosperity. Unfortunately, the ownership, profitability, and even presence of small businesses are grounded in differences in capital finance and unevenly distributed by race—especially when comparing Black and white communities. This issue brief examines the disparity.
Investing in Equality: Integrating LGBT Issues into Total Portfolio Activation
This white paper from Trilium Asset Management provides a framework for investors to expand the scope of impact in LGBT issues across asset classes in their portfolios. The authors believe that all investments have impact, regardless of asset class, and that individual and institutional investors alike should consider how best to achieve their financial goals while leveraging their investments in a way that aligns with their mission and values. The goal of this report is that investors use the resources and case studies in this white paper as a guide for identifying investment opportunities that advance LGBT rights and equality.
Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy 2018–2022: Fiji Women’s Fund
The Fiji Women’s Fund is an initiative of the Pacific Women Shaping Pacific Development (Pacific Women) Program, funded by the Australian Government. In November 2015, DFAT commissioned a three-member design team to develop the Fund design. The design team consulted with a range of stakeholders including key women’s civil society organisations and rural women’s groups, government, private sector and development grantees. The consultation highlighted the positive interest and support from women’s civil society organisations for the Fund to be locally owned and managed. However, there was strong consensus among women’s organisations that the process for localising the Fund required time and planning, and that this would be the key focus of the Fund while it is supported by DFAT until 2022. The Fund commits up to AU$10.5 million from July 2017 to June 2022 to women’s organisations, groups and networks. It will provide funding and capacity development support to women’s groups, organisations and networks in Fiji to expand and enhance their work on women’s empowerment and gender equality.
Ethnicity in Investment Management: Building Positive Intentions into Meaningful Action
This report by the Investment Association (IA) reflects on the actions investment management firms are taking to better understand their workforce and identify where minorities are under-represented, as well as the reasons behind this. It is designed to provide practical examples through case studies to share good practice with their wider membership. It forms part of the extensive existing body of D&I work produced by the IA, including their 2019 Black Voices report which looks specifically at the experiences of Black professionals working in the investment management industry and Black students considering their careers.