Trillium Asset Management’s Top Company Holdings Honored in Business Ethics Magazine’s “100 Best Corporate Citizens” List(A)

Among the companies honored in Business Ethics magazine’s 2004 “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list are a number of corporations that are currently among Trillium Asset Management’s top choices for client portfolios.
Five (5) of the list’s Top 10 companies – Fannie Mae, Procter & Gamble, Intel, Green Mountain Coffee, Hewlett-Packard and Ecolab – are among our top holdings. Fourteen (14) more of our top holdings made the list this year: IBM, Timberland, Cisco Systems, SLM Corporation, New York Times, FedEx, Starbucks, Staples, Medtronic, Whole Foods Market, Air Products, Minerals Technologies, and Bright Horizons Family Solutions.
Ten (10) of these stocks have made the list for five consecutive years: Fannie Mae, Procter & Gamble, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Ecolab, IBM, Timberland, Cisco Systems, Starbucks, Medtronic, Whole Foods Market, Air Products, Minerals Technologies, and Bright Horizons Family Solutions.
To be selected for investment by our managers, companies must pass a number of social and environmental screens in addition to meeting our investment criteria. Where possible, we try to favor the best social and environmental performers in each industry. (For more information, see our Investment Disciplines page.)
Business Ethics states that the purpose of the annual list is “to identify firms that excel at serving a variety of stakeholders well.” The companies are drawn from the Russell 1000, the 1,000 largest publicly traded firms, which are scored according to their treatment of seven stakeholder groups: shareholders, community, minorities and women, employees, environment, non-U.S. stakeholders, and customers. The Boston-based corporate responsibility research firm KLD Research & Analytics compiles the scores, which are then reviewed by a selection committee which can recommend pulling companies from the list due to social scandals or other issues that may not be reflected in the initial scoring. This year, Trillium Asset Management’s Social Research & Advocacy Director Shelley Alpern served on this committee.