From climate change to human rights, big business is embracing a socially responsible agenda. We have come a long way from the days when a soft-spoken nun was shouted down when she raised these issues at annual meetings. Today, she is more likely to be taken to lunch by the Chairman
When Sister Patricia Daly rose to prominence as a shareholder activist in the 1990s, the mild-mannered Dominican nun was booed during annual meetings. Her attempts to change corporate behavior on issues such as pollution, climate change and human rights were ignored.
In the years since Sister Daly – who heads the New Jerseybased Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment – began cajoling companies to do the right thing, the landscape around her has changed considerably. For one, she finds she does a lot less cajoling. No longer an interloper at annual meetings, she is often invited to boardrooms for a one-on-one session with executives keen to convince her that their companies are on the right side of the issues she cares about.
“They now agree to meet at least every year, if not twice a year, going through updates of a broad agenda,” says Daly. “And, in many cases, the CEO is part of that dialogue.”
One Fortune 50 CEO who once yelled at Daly during an annual meeting invited her back to lunch to talk about how he could address climate change. His company is now an exemplar of environmental responsibility.
From activism to engagement
Sister Daly’s Tri-State Coalition is among a growing group of shareholders assessing companies’ environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance on a par with their financial standing. Socially responsible investors, including the likes of Walden Asset Management and Calvert Investments, have built a reputation for excluding companies from their funds that do not meet ESG standards. Once viewed as being on the fringe, they now exert an increasing influence. Some institutional investors now study a company’s ESG data as closely as its balance sheet and use various tools, from persuasion to annual meeting resolutions, to push companies to improve environmental and social practices. John Wilson, who performs this role for US financial services company TIAA-CREF, where he is Director of Corporate Governance, sees his job getting easier.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, and it used to be a real effort to get into a room with a company,” he says. “Now they’re calling us and saying: ‘We want your input.’ It’s encouraging.”
What’s changed is a realization by companies that ESG performance can affect the bottom line as much as a series of bad quarters. “For large-cap companies, I think we’re at a tipping point,” says Tim Smith, Senior Vice-President of Walden. “We see more companies that understand that this can add value for them, rather than being forced into it reluctantly or with skepticism.”
Sister Daly agrees that moral arguments do not move companies as effectively as a sound business case. She has seen a shift in corporate attitudes in this regard. They are willing to reassess opposition to change if they see that opposition posing a material risk to long-term financial success.