Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 66.39
Liaison Michelle Patterson
Submission Date March 4, 2022

STARS v2.2

Washington University in St. Louis
PA-10: Sustainable Investment

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.63 / 5.00 Phil Valko
Assistant Vice Chancellor for Sustainability
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Positive sustainability investment

Total value of the investment pool:
15,300,000,000 US/Canadian $

Value of holdings in each of the following categories:
Value of holdings
Sustainable industries (e.g., renewable energy or sustainable forestry) 384,000,000 US/Canadian $
Businesses selected for exemplary sustainability performance (e.g., using criteria specified in a sustainable investment policy) 0 US/Canadian $
Sustainability investment funds (e.g., a renewable energy or impact investment fund) 0 US/Canadian $
Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) or the equivalent 0 US/Canadian $
Socially responsible mutual funds with positive screens (or the equivalent) 0 US/Canadian $
Green revolving funds funded from the endowment 0 US/Canadian $

If any of the above is greater than zero, provide:

A brief description of the companies, funds, and/or institutions referenced above:
$155M invested in clean tech and renewable energy. $229 invested in food tech and sustainable agriculture.

Percentage of the institution's investment pool in positive sustainability investments:
2.51

Part 2. Investor engagement

Sustainable investment policy 

Does the institution have a publicly available sustainable investment policy?:
No

None
A copy of the sustainable investment policy:
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None
The sustainable investment policy:
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None
Does the institution use its sustainable investment policy to select and guide investment managers?:
No

A brief description of how the sustainable investment policy is applied:
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Proxy voting 

Has the institution engaged in proxy voting, either by its CIR or other committee or through the use of guidelines, to promote sustainability during the previous three years?:
No

None
A copy of the proxy voting guidelines or proxy record:
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None
A brief description of how managers are adhering to proxy voting guidelines:
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Shareholder resolutions 

Has the 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?:
No

Examples of how the institution has engaged with corporations in its portfolio about sustainability issues during the previous three years:
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Divestment efforts and negative screens

Does the institution participate in a public divestment effort and/or have a publicly available investment policy with negative screens?:
No

A brief description of the divestment effort or negative screens and how they have been implemented:
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Approximate percentage of endowment that the divestment effort and/or negative screens apply to:
0

Investor networks 

Does the institution engage in policy advocacy by participating in investor networks and/or engage in inter-organizational collaborations to share best practices?:
Yes

None
A brief description of the investor networks and/or collaborations:
Our Investment Management Company (WUIMC) participates in informal peer networks in which participants share institutional knowledge. Peer networks are groups of CIOs and/or COOs from other universities, endowments, and foundations. They are not investor networks specifically designed to collaborate on specifically on sustainable investments but rather all topics related to endowment and foundation investing; sustainable investing may be one of the topics of discussion within the group at any given time.

WUIMC participates in Institutional Allocators for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (IADEI) sessions. This is a group led by endowments and foundations that puts together introductory sessions with diverse investment firms and sessions discussing these issues.

WUIMC partnered with WashU's Sustainability Exchange Course on a practicum project focused on identifying opportunities to strengthen the evaluation of the investment portfolio’s ESG profile. Students conducted research on ESG reporting of our peer universities and ESG scoring frameworks (formulating a framework to evaluate companies and investments on ESG metrics). They evaluated a number of individual companies using a scoring framework and presented recommendations on tools WUIMC can utilize to assess the ESG impact of its portfolio companies. This was an intra-organizational project (no external parties were involved.)

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s sustainable investment efforts is available:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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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.