Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC

For almost three years now, the Environmental Stewardship Committee has been honored to write to you, the parishioners of the Chapel of the Cross, about stewardship of God's creation, our planet Earth. We have written about our water, air, and land, about trees, climate, and green churches, and even about greening up your Christmas experience. In this issue of Cross Roads, we want to write about how you invest your money. And yes, this is still an article about environmental stewardship. We hope you will read on.

From the Ecumenical Stewardship Center (of which the Episcopal Church is a founding member) comes a working definition of Christian Stewardship:

Christian stewardship is grateful and responsible use of God's gifts in the light of God's purpose as revealed in Jesus Christ. Christian stewards, empowered by the Holy Spirit, commit themselves to conscious, purposeful decisions. Stewardship is lived out in seeking justice, peace, and the integrity of creation in an interdependent universe; wisely employing God-given human resources, abilities, and relationships; sharing the material resources we hold and giving them in service, justice, and compassion; providing for future generations, sharing in the life, worship, and responsible stewardship of the Church and of its mission.

Both for the individual and for the community, stewardship is a joyful act for the sake of God's world. (www.episcopalchurch.org/stewardship_3272_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=undefined)

From this definition, it is clear that the investment of our money provides ample opportunity to demonstrate stewardship. Environmentally responsible investing falls under the umbrella of a broader term, socially responsible investing, which may be defined as: "investment decisions or activities conducted with the deliberate application of an investor's moral, ethical, social and/or environmental values." (Investor Responsibility Research Center; http://www.irrc.org/).

The origins of what we now call socially responsible investing date back hundreds of years. In biblical times, Jewish law provided guidance on ethical investments. In this country, early Quakers refused to invest in companies connected to the slave trade; and in the 1920s many American churches kept their investments away from any industries related to alcohol and tobacco. During the 1960s and 70s, the Vietnam war, civil rights, and the equality of women escalated popular sensitivities to issues of social responsibility and accountability. Many people today may have encountered socially responsible investing for the first time in the 1970s and 1980s with the unprecedented divestment from South Africa during apartheid.

In fact, while this article is about personal investing, you should know that the Episcopal Church of the United States filed the very first social issue shareholder resolution by a religious institution back in 1971 that called on General Motors to withdraw from South Africa.

With the massive gas leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984, the world's worst nuclear power accident in Chernobyl on April 25 - 26, 1986, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in March, 1989, the environment moved into the forefront of the minds of socially concerned investors. This interest has grown significantly in recent years with the vast amounts of new information that has moved into public awareness on critical issues such as ozone depletion and climate change.

Likewise, the exposure of corporate scandals in recent years has also boosted interest in responsible investing as shareholders seek to invest in companies that adhere to high standards of ethics, morality, and transparency.

An in-depth discussion of socially (or more specifically environmentally) responsible investing is beyond the scope of this article. Websites offering more information for interested readers are listed below. But briefly, socially, or environmentally aware investors, use three basic strategies in their efforts to make a difference while also increasing the return on their assets.

The first is screening and involves selecting profitable companies that make positive contributions to society while avoiding those companies whose activities are perceived as harmful. Individuals, or their investment advisors, typically overlay a qualitative analysis of corporate policies, practices, attitudes, and impacts onto the traditional quantitative analysis of profit potential. From this is generated a list of companies deemed worthy of investment.

The second strategy is shareholder advocacy or activism and includes engaging in dialogue with companies and submitting and voting on shareholder resolutions. The goal is to influence corporate behavior in ways that will be more protective of the planet as well as financially rewarding.

The third strategy is community investing, which provides capital to people in low-income, at-risk communities who have difficulty accessing it through conventional means.

Further information on socially and environmentally responsible investing may be found at:

SustainableBusiness.com: www.sustainablebusiness.com/

Investor Responsibility Research Center: www.irrc.org/

SocialFunds.com: www.socialfunds.com/

Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility: www.iccr.org/

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