Investors Urge Companies to Continue Coverage of Sexual & Reproductive Health Care Benefits
December 11, 2017 // Boston, MA – Trillium Asset Management, alongside a leading group of institutional investors, is calling on the 50 largest employers of the Fortune 500 to commit to continue providing their employees with access to contraception and other reproductive health care benefits. This letter is in response to the Trump administration’s recently updated regulations that enable companies to seek an exemption from offering their employees’ health insurance that includes contraception. We believe this policy is a mistake that may bring significant harm to American women, families, and the economy. As institutional investors, we see compelling evidence that …
Information for Acuity Shareholders Regarding Our 2017 Shareholder Proposal
December 8, 2017 // Boston, MA – Trillium Asset Management has published an open letter to shareholders of Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) urging them to vote in favor of our Sustainability and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting shareholder proposal on the company’s 2018 proxy card. The letter provides the four main reasons why we believe shareholders should vote for this proposal. In summary, this proposal asks Acuity to issue a report describing the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies, performance, and improvement targets, including a discussion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions management strategies and quantitative metrics. As shareholders, we believe it …
Join Trillium: The Chemical Footprint Project for Investors Workshop
December 4, 2017// Boston, MA – On Thursday, December 7th, Susan Baker, Vice President of Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, will participate as a speaker at the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) for Investors Workshop. Speakers will describe how investors can use the CFP to understand chemical risks and opportunities, and engage companies to adopt strategies to accelerate movement away from toxic chemicals and toward safer alternatives. Speakers will also discuss recent findings and results from the Chemical Footprint Project Survey. In August 2017, the CFP released the second annual Chemical Footprint Project Report, providing valuable insight into how leading …
Perspectives: Mitigating Risks in a Fossil Fuel Free Portfolio
Over the past few years there have been a record number of studies analyzing the financial impacts of staying invested or avoiding fossil fuels — and the results demonstrate that investors can seek competitive returns while potentially experiencing advantages such as reducing their risk of holding potentially devalued assets. We also know that for a growing number of investors, fossil fuel companies pose distinctive risks that are not manageable to the extent required to make them attractive investments. It is no wonder that with the ethical, political and potential financial advantages, more people are looking for information on how to …
Acuity Brands Expands Workplace Policies to Protect LGBT Employees
October 30, 2017 //Boston, MA – Trillium Asset Management is pleased to announce that we have successfully withdrawn our workplace equality shareholder proposal at Acuity Brands (NYSE: AYI) following the company’s changes to its Code of Ethics and Business Conduct to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Trillium believes that companies and workers benefit from consistent, corporate-wide, efforts to prevent discrimination, ensuring a respectful and supportive atmosphere for all employees. Research from the Williams Institute has also shown that LGBT-supportive policies lead to positive business outcomes, lower staff turnover, and increased job …
Trillium Joins Amicus Brief to End LGBTQ Employment Discrimination
October 11, 2017 // Boston, MA – Today, Trillium joins Lambda Legal and 75 other businesses and organizations urging the U.S. Supreme Court to prohibit sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The amicus brief addresses the inconsistency with which two federal courts have interpreted ‘sex’ and whether discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals have each arrived at different interpretations creating inconsistency for employers, employees, and LGBT individuals across six states. This discrepancy can only be resolved only by …
After the Clean Power Plan: Utilities, Clean Energy & a Greener Future
By Elizabeth R. Levy, CFA, Vice President and Lead Manager, Fossil Fuel Free Core Strategy Given the politics and donor base of the current occupants of the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator’s office, it would be reasonable to assume that the future of renewable energy is finished, vanished into a hydrocarbon- and particulate matter-laden haze. However, due in part to the tumbling prices of wind and solar technologies and the unpopularity of coal, that dystopian future seems unlikely to materialize, no matter how strongly the Administration might wish it so. To be sure, the administration is …
SF Examiner: Trillium’s Will Lana Makes Case for Divestment in Op-Ed
The San Francisco Examiner published an op-ed authored by Will Lana, Trillium Asset Management Partner and Investment Manager titled, “Growing Evidence Supports Fossil Fuel Divestment SF Pension”. On August 9th, the board of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) is expected to vote on whether to divest all fossil fuel holdings from the pension fund. In response to recent public opposition against divestment, the op-ed cites a growing a number of studies showing that divesting from fossil fuels does not reduce risk-adjusted returns. Growing Evidence Supports Fossil Fuel Divestment of SF Pension The Board of Supervisors unanimously supported it. …
ThinkAdvisor Profiles Trillium’s Award-Winning Approach to ESG Investing
August 4, 2017 // Boston, MA – This past May, after receiving the Envestnet and Investment Advisor SMA ‘Impact’ Manager of the Year Award for our Small/Mid-Cap Core strategy, Trillium Asset Management CEO Matthew Patsky sat down with Investment Advisor magazine to discuss the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the strategy’s investment process. Below is an excerpt from the article. The Long Game: 2017 SMA Managers of the Year Although impact investing has been growing in popularity over the last few years, Trillium Asset Management has been in the sector for 35 years. When the firm was founded in …
New CFP Report: Chemical Footprinting Moves to the Mainstream
August 3, 2017 // Boston, MA – Clean Production Action in partnership with the UMass Lowell Center for Sustainable Production and Pure Strategies released the second annual Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) Report. The report gives investors data and findings on the progress companies across a variety of industry sectors are making toward developing environmentally sound chemicals management policies and practices. As signatories of the project, Trillium Asset Management has engaged several portfolio companies requesting their participation in the assessment survey. In addition, Susan Baker, Vice President of Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium and Jeremy Cote, Research Analyst at Trillium serve as …
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