Our ServicesSustainable Investment Solutions™ Proxy Voting Guidelines (pdf) FAFN Giving FundAbout UsMore About UsOur BeliefsOur GoalsMedia Center FAFN Leadership

By Christie Renner

Over 550 SRI industry practitioners gathered in October 2009 amid rolling hills peppered with saguaro cacti near Tucson, Arizona at the SRI in the Rockies Conference to learn, teach, collaborate, advance their work. Plenary speakers included experts in asset management, economics, law, business sustainability, and social research—all of whom are working to direct the flow of investment capital to create a more sustainable world.

Mark Fulton of Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors shared the podium with Mindy Lubber, President of CERES, to emphasize the need for partnership between the government and the private sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now, as the costs of inaction will almost certainly continue to climb. Calling for a mandatory cap on carbon, Lubber said she supports government tax incentives to encourage investing in a green economy. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Green For All, discussed her organization’s collaboration with existing government programs to create green-collar jobs in regions heavily impacted by the recession.

For investors, companies, government, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), collaboration seems to be the wave of the future, perhaps replacing some of the antagonistic advocacy of the past. Greater numbers of NGOs are asking former foes to work with them to address pressing problems of poverty and environmental degradation. And corporations are reaping the benefits of affiliation with organizations that have decades of experience tackling pressing social and environmental problems.

One example is the work between Greenpeace and Coco-Cola to end the use of hydroflourocarbons (HFC) in all new Coke vending machines and coolers by 2015. Taking this step will dramatically cut the company’s greenhouse gas emissions, and Coke hopes its industry peers will follow its lead. SRI in the Rockies Conference participants learned about collaborative efforts between Oxfam America (an NGO) and Swiss Re (a leading global insurance company) to address climate risk mitigation in communities most vulnerable to climate change effects such as rising sea level and crop failure.

Because global corporations are so large, each shift toward sustainability can multiply quickly along supply chains and induce competition among industry peers to meet higher standards. Rainforest Alliance President Tensie Whelan and Cees Talma of Lipton at Unilever discussed how the Rainforest Alliance certification program has catalyzed dramatic shifts toward greater sustainability all along Lipton’s tea leave supply chain, which accounts for 12% of the world’s tea. Started over twenty years ago, Rainforest Alliance now operates in 70 countries around the world, where its certification system raises the bar on corporate responsibility by setting specific social and environmental standards, and auditing company compliance with those standards over time.

Partnerships like those mentioned above are critical to a successful transition to a green global economy, but partnership is not only for big players. Woody Tasch, author of Slow Money, spoke at SRI in the Rockies to share his vision of local communities working to transition to more sustainable food systems. This coming together of all stakeholders at all levels—local, national, and international—creates the web of coordination and commitment necessary to take the world in a new direction.

It’s impossible to cover all of the exciting content found at the SRI in the Rockies Conference here, but you can listen to the sessions mentioned above and more by visiting our conference website: http://www.SRIinTheRockies.com. Click on the “Past/Future Conferences” link and select the “2009 conference” to be taken to audio recordings of all sessions.