Columbia University
PAE-17: Shareholder Advocacy

There are two possible approaches to earning this credit.  

1)      Institution filed or co-filed one or more shareholder resolutions that address sustainability or submitted one or more letters about social or environmental responsibility to a company in which it holds investments, during the previous three years.  

and/or

2)      Institution has conducted a negative screening of its entire investment pool within the last three years.  This could take the form of prohibiting investment in an industry (e.g. tobacco or weapons manufacturing) or participating in a divestment effort (e.g. companies operating in South Africa during apartheid).  The negative screen includes selling all but $2,000 or less of the affected direct holdings and writing a letter to all fund managers encouraging them to remove affected holdings as well.

Institutions for which investments are handled by the university system and/or a separate foundation of the institution should report on the shareholder advocacy activities of those entities. 

This credit applies to institutions with endowments of US $1 million or larger.  Institutions with endowments less than US $1 million may choose to omit this credit.

Institutions earn 5 points for meeting the criteria outlined above.  Partial points are not available for this credit. 

Timeframe

Report on actions taken within the past three years.

Sampling and Data Standards

Not applicable