Overall Rating Gold - expired
Overall Score 65.95
Liaison Susan Powers
Submission Date Feb. 12, 2016
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

Clarkson University
PA-13: Committee on Investor Responsibility

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 2.00 / 2.00 Susan Powers
Assoc. Dir. Sustainability
ISE
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have a formally established and active committee on investor responsibility (CIR) or similar body that has multi-stakeholder representation (i.e. includes faculty, staff, and students) and otherwise meets the criteria for this credit?:
Yes

The charter or mission statement of the CIR or other body which reflects social and environmental concerns or a brief description of how the CIR is tasked to address social and environmental concerns:

The "charter" for this group was to develop and see though the Campus Statement of Investor Beliefs:
CLARKSON UNIVERSITY
STATEMENT OF INVESTMENT BELIEFS
February 21, 2013
The Clarkson University Values Statement includes a description of “Vision”: Having a vision of a sustainable future helps us prepare for it. Embracing the inevitable changes in our world as opportunities allows us to anticipate, promote, and facilitate change.
Our investment strategy will seek to embody this value by taking account of the relationship between 1) good environmental management, 2) sensitivity to social issues, and 3) and strong corporate governance; and long-term sustainable business profitability. We will seek to overlay this strategy across our investment portfolio. Our main influence will be through our strategic asset allocation, manager structure, manager selection, performance benchmarks, monitoring, and reporting – and not by getting involved in the day-to-day investment decisions, which is the role of our asset managers.
We will favor investing on a positive “best in class” selection basis, and encourage the use of engagement rather than negative screening.
We believe companies with strong environmental, social, and governance profiles are better managed for the long term, have lower risk profiles, and are positioned to outperform their peers. We engage indirectly through allocating capital to investment managers who invest with companies and sectors with positive economic, ecological, and social impact.
We will consider environmental impact, social justice, and corporate governance issues as we cast our proxy votes.


Members of the CIR, including affiliations and role (e.g. student, faculty, alumni):

committee chaired by Clarkson CFO James Fish, and including a member of the of Trustees, faculty members Chris Robinson, and Allan Zebedee, and 2 CUSB students - rotate on an annual basis


Examples of CIR actions during the previous three years:

The CIR committee was established in 2013 to assess and make recommendations to the Board investment committee regarding SRI. The committee wrote a statement of Investment Beliefs to drive the committee's work, selected a suitable fund manager, surveyed to campus community to identify the most important positive and negative attributes to inform SRI investment decisions and communicate to the campus on progress with the SRI. The work of the committee resulted in the first strategic SRI investment in 2014.


The website URL where information about the CIR is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.