Responsible Investor

Putting faith in engagement

3iG, the global interfaith movement, says it must do more than just exclude companies.

A seismic shift towards shareholder engagement by an organisation representing the world’s largest pool of institutional assets, potentially worth trillions of dollars, could be the ‘tipping point’ in responsible investment: the move to the mainstream.
The Amsterdam-based international interfaith movement, or 3iG as it is known, comprises representatives of the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths. Its aim: to introduce “faith-consistent investment”, has prompted it to implement a radical switch from screening undesirable investments to prompting change in the companies whose shares its members holds
Michiel Hardon, a member of 3iG’s executive board as representative of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, which itself has 348 member churches with an estimated congregation of 650 million Christians, is testament to this new active blend of faith and finance.
A former director at the International Monetary Fund, Hardon says if you look at 3iG’s constituent institutional holdings plus the additional private assets of believers, the total value of its impact could reach trillions of dollars: “The reason for moving away from negative

screening was that we felt it did not represent what we are as faith groups. It was also too costly. Faith groups have a vision of how the world should be and have a stewardship role to play. We believe this is more suited to positive engagement with companies. We want to do more than just say we don’t invest in gambling.”

One of his tasks is to co-ordinate the change from the traditional faith rationale of boycotting companies that do not match their values. This includes organising research and discussion forums to examine the costs of negative screening and the practicalities of engaging with companies: “We don’t manage assets here on behalf of faith groups and nor do we want to. We see ourselves as a knowledge centre for information and training. We aren’t proscriptive in terms of what asset managers or funds our members should be choosing.”
He says there is sufficient, credible research around to demonstrate that faith groups can engage and make profit responsibly: “We had our most recent board meeting in Washington DC at the start of May and we heard the successful example of the Methodist Church in the US, which has some $16bn (€11.8bn) in assets being run profitably through positive investment screens.”

Not a member? Register here »