Marcela I. Pinilla
Director of Sustainable Investing

Download our Q3 2022 Impact Update.

At Zevin Asset Management, we build responsible investment portfolios to satisfy our clients’ goals. We then address risks and create positive social impact by engaging with portfolio companies.

THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT & ITS PROMISING CLIMATE AND SOCIAL IMPACTS

As we head into the fall, we are encouraged by Congress’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), one of the most significant actions to date ever taken by the United States to mitigate climate change. The package includes $369 billion in climate and clean energy provisions presenting massive opportunities to confront the climate crisis with transformative investments.

As with most plans, the devil is in the details. Keeping this in mind, we will continue to follow its implementation closely. We are interested in the plan’s social impacts, including the advancement of racial equity by providing funding to farmers who have faced racial discrimination. We acknowledge how the legacy of slavery manifests itself in the agriculture sector and support reparations from the government and capital markets.

We believe the speed of corporate business transformation around climate must accelerate. This fall, we plan to join forces with fellow investors and push companies to disclose how they will boost their own climate transition. We will also continue seeking an evaluation of the alignment between corporations’ sustainability commitments and lobbying activities. Lobbying by third parties affects a multitude of issues, including obstruction of climate change mitigation activities, but also voter suppression, and spreading misinformation to discredit ESG investing. Our proxy voting policies reflect our disapproval of board members who fail to move the needle on their social and environmental commitments.

STAKEHOLDER VOICES IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF RACIAL EQUITY

We believe investors must hold companies accountable to the pledges and commitments made towards communities of color.

Zevin Asset Management reached an agreement with Verizon to conduct an independent, third-party racial equity audit of its business operations and policies. This assessment aims to identify policies and practices that perpetuate disparities in pay, benefits, and workplace inclusion. We plan to progress toward greater equity and job quality for Verizon’s full workforce, including contractors and not just employees. We will continue to raise stakeholders as crucial voices during the process and ensure that the scope of the audit is comprehensive.

This summer we also raised questions related to racial equity commitments and the underwriting of prison bonds. In 2019, Wells Fargo announced before Congress that the bank was exiting the private prison industry. However, in 2022 it pivoted to underwriting Alabama’s prison bond offering.

The Investor Circle Toward Decarceration (Investor Circle) has led a multi-year campaign to press Wells Fargo and others to quit a bank syndicate that facilitates lending to companies with racist business models such as the prison industry or surveillance technologies. As a core group member of the Investor Circle, Zevin Asset Management supported the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)’s engagement with Wells Fargo following the company’s agreement to conduct a racial equity audit.

The purpose of this audit is to gauge where and how a company’s products, services, and funding through financial instruments (both lending and financing) can conflict with its commitments to racial and gender diversity, equity, and inclusion. We raised concern over Wells Fargo’s exposure to the prison industry and how their recent underwriting of the Alabama prison bond could affect the credibility of the audit results, which we will evaluate with interest.

In other news: Zevin Asset Management weighs in

At Zevin Asset Management, we actively lend our investor voice to other individuals and institutions seeking to create positive social change. This quarter, we supported various partner initiatives:

• One million species are facing extinction and ecosystems are deteriorating rapidly. Biodiversity loss is one of the most significant tragedies of the commons and poses a large threat to the economy. Led by FAIIR, we have joined an engagement with companies with exposure to deforestation and play a role in biodiversity loss.

• Alongside Heartland Initiative, our partner that focuses on conflict zones around the world, we signed a letter to JPMorgan Chase & Co. on how the bank identifies, assesses, addresses, and reports on human rights risks in its direct and value chain activities.

• We sent a letter, crafted by the Shareholder Rights Group, to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) encouraging the regulatory agency to release a definitive rule on climate disclosure. If implemented, the rule will force companies to provide relevant disclosures necessary for investors to assess material climate risk and make better informed investment decisions.

• There is no business without water. Zevin Asset Management joined 64 investors representing $9.8 trillion in assets in the launch of Ceres’ Valuing Water Finance Initiative. This effort will engage 72 of the world’s biggest corporate water users and polluters to value and act on water as a financial risk, driving much-needed, large-scale change to better protect water systems.

INTERFAITH CENTER ON CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY TURNS 50: HALF A CENTURY OF ADVOCACY FOR IMPACT

Zevin Asset Management continues to be active in corporate engagements, listening to advocacy organizations on the ground, and participating in forums, panels, and advisory sessions that contribute to our collective work.

Zevin Asset Management has long partnered with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) on shareholder advocacy. At ICCR’s fall 2022 conference, Zevin Asset Management President Sonia Kowal reminded members of the ongoing human rights violations that occur daily with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in her session “The Russian War on Ukraine: Combatting Corporate Complicity in Critical Sectors.” She was joined by Isedua Oribhabor from Access Now, Kate Watters from Crude Accountability, and Sam Jones from Heartland Initiative to evaluate the ways in which investors are exposed to the human rights risks associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and discuss due diligence requests that investors can pose to companies to better fulfill their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles.

Zevin Asset Management Director of Sustainable Investing Marcela Pinilla collaborated with the Racial Justice Investing coalition to lead ICCR members in an exercise exploring institutional and ideological systems of oppression and how they were built since the passage of the 13th Amendment. There are always stories about the structures that created our institutions and the embedded discrimination that exists. As we continue to unpack corporate history, we will continue to refine and activate our investor voice to guide our engagements.

Thank you for reading and sharing. For more on this work and our broader advocacy, visit our website, and join us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And please don’t hesitate to contact Marcela Pinilla, Zevin Asset Management’s director of sustainable investing, at marcela@zevin.com with your questions, thoughts, and suggestions.

Disclosures: Registration with the SEC should not be construed as an endorsement or an indicator of investment skill, acumen or experience. Investments in securities are not insured, protected or guaranteed and may result in loss of income and/or principal. This communication may include opinions and forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are opinions and/or forward-looking statements (including words such as “believe,” “estimate,” “anticipate,” “may,” “will,” “should,” and “expect”). Although we believe that the beliefs and expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such beliefs and expectations will prove to be correct. Various factors could cause actual results or performance to differ materially from those discussed in such forward-looking statements. Unless stated otherwise, any mention of specific securities or investments is for hypothetical and illustrative purposes only. Zevin Asset Management’s clients may or may not hold the securities discussed in their portfolios. Zevin Asset Management makes no representations that any of the securities discussed have been or will be profitable.