November 5th, 2019—For over 70 years, the shareholder proposal rule has served main street investors, companies, and the public well. It has promoted and supported a marketplace of ideas that has harnessed the innovations and perspectives of small investors to the benefit of companies, workers, communities, the environment, and our economy. It has also served as an important counter-balance to crony capitalism and the concentration of power in corporate executives. But the proposed rule issued today, if adopted, would weaken this important engine of the marketplace and would tip the scales in favor of corporate managers. By making the eligibility …

As Trillium seeks to influence businesses and policy to act on climate change, economic empowerment, human rights, and many other factors considered within our sustainable investment approach, we aim to look within to ensure that we are also embodying these practices. In an effort to offset carbon emissions from our business activities, we are working in collaboration with NativeEnergy, a provider of carbon offset programs. NativeEnergy offers a program called Help Build™ which works with companies like us to customize carbon offset projects that are tailored to a company’s unique needs, values, and overall strategy. An offset program, in the …

237 Honorees Worldwide Honored for Meeting the Highest Standards of Social and Environmental Performance in Business Trillium Asset Management and 236 companies worldwide, were recognized by B Lab on its seventh annual ‘Best for the World Overall’ Honoree list, the highest B Lab designation, for generating positive social and environmental impact through business practices and performance. Every year, B Lab, a non-profit organization helping companies manage corporate social responsibility, recognizes businesses that have earned an overall score in the top 10% of approximately 2,500 Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment. The assessment analyzes a company’s contributions to community …

On September 2nd, Pension & Investments published a commentary authored by Trillium Asset Management’s Senior Vice President Jonas Kron, and US SIF’s CEO Lisa Woll titled, “Stronger partnership needed between shareholders, managers” in response to the Business Roundtable’s stakeholder statement. Read the full commentary below and online here. Commentary: Stronger partnership needed between shareholders, managers Lost in many responses to the Business Roundtable statement Aug. 19 that companies have a “fundamental commitment” to all their stakeholders is a simple fact: Structurally speaking, there are two primary regions of power in a company: shareholders and managers. And both of them need …

Boston, MA // August 26, 2019 Trillium Asset Management has published a letter to shareholders of Lamb Weston Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: LW) urging holders of record to vote in favor of a shareholder proposal on the company’s 2019 proxy ballot. The shareholder proposal (Item #4 on the proxy) asks the company to disclose at regular intervals, at reasonable expense and omitting proprietary or privileged information, available quantitative metrics on pesticide use in the company’s supply chain, and how pesticide use impacts pollinators. Spun off from ConAgra foods in 2016, Lamb Weston is a global supplier of frozen potato, sweet potato, …

This spring, we learned that one of the companies in Trillium’s strategies, PNC Financial Services, is one of ten leading financing partners of private prison companies CoreCivic and Geo Group. While we are invested in PNC in part because of its commitments to sustainable business practices and efforts to serve its communities, we were greatly concerned about this news; private prisons are rife with alleged human rights abuses. As noted in recent reports and lawsuits, allegations include inmate deaths, poor medical care, allegations of physical and sexual abuse of detainees and violence.[1] Some of these risks are heightened due to …