Eurosif, the European Social Investment Forum, has completed its Pension Programme SRI Toolkit designed to help pension fund trustees understand how to integrate SRI into their funds investment policy. Based on research conducted in ten European countries during 2004, this toolkit allows the reader to better grasp the meaning of fiduciary risk, decision making criteria as well as potential strategies to employ in order to include social, environmental, ethical and corporate governance issues (CG/SEE) in a pension plan.
The toolkit proposes specific steps for trustees to use in order to implement CG/SEE issues within their pension fund. Rob Bauer from ABP Investments declares Eurosif’s toolkit is a must-read for board of trustee members willing to learn about the practice of SRI by pension funds across Europe.
The project was completed with the help of the European Commission and is in line with the Commissions Social Policy Agenda as part of the integrated European approach towards raising awareness about how to integrate social and environmental criteria into financial analysis.
As further endorsement of Eurosifs Pension Programme, the European Commission has awarded Eurosif with additional funding for 2005 to continue its work with pension funds. Eurosif expects to use this money to implement the toolkit with trustees. Among other partners, Eurosif plans to work with different European trade unions to help expand SRI into the workers groups so that a responsible shareholder culture is developed.
Pierre Habbard, corporate governance consultant for TUAC (Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD) says, "Eurosif’s SRI toolkit is a promising guide to current SRI practice and should be of great use in the context of trustee and investor education."
A copy of the Pension Programme SRI Toolkit can be downloaded at:
http://www.eurosif.org/pub2/lib/2004/11/pensiontk/index.shtml.
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Editors Notes:
About Eurosif
Eurosif (The European Social Investment Forum) is a pan-European group whose mission is to encourage and develop sustainable and responsible investment and better corporate governance. Current members of Eurosif include pension funds, financial service providers, academic institutes, research associations and NGOs. The association is a not-for-profit entity that represents assets totalling over 600bn through its membership. The key benefits members receive from Eurosif are EU lobbying, SRI information and European wide initiatives that promote and explain the SRI and Corporate Governance sectors.
