CII's Weekly Governance Alert  is a members-only e-newsletter that keeps members up-to-date on news and trends in corporate governance, financial regulation, CII events and activities, member proxy proposals and other initiatives to advance corporate governance and shareholder rights.  This is a reminder that you're receiving this email because you are a member of The Council of Institutional Investors. Don't forget to add us to your "Safe Senders" list so we always land in your inbox!
Weekly Governance Alert
Editor: Rosemary Lally | April 9, 2020 | Vol 25, Issue 14
In This Issue
  • CII Unveils Comprehensive Covid-19 Resource Center
  • CII Updates Board Accountability, Voting Guideline Resources for Proxy Season
  • Virtual Meetings-How's It Going?
  • SEC Offers Flexibility on Comment Periods But Will Not Suspend New Rulemaking
  • Companies Take Different Approaches to Calls for Paid Sick Leave
  • Poison Pill Adoptions Continue to Pick Up Amid Covid Crisis
  • Policy, Governance Blunders Add Bitter Taste as Luckin Coffee Investors Swallow Accounting Fraud
  • State Street CEO Tells Companies to Maintain Focus on Long-Term ESG Issues
  • Upcoming Meetings that Feature Proposals Filed by CII Members
New Podcast Episode
FYI
  • Invitation to Participate in US SIF's Biennial Survey of Sustainable Investing
In addition to our own content, CII staff compiles news clips at the end of the Weekly Governance Alert that are of interest to our members. Scroll to the bottom to read more!
CII Unveils Comprehensive Covid-19 Resource Center
To keep members up-to-date on regulatory and legislative developments affecting the capital markets during the pandemic, CII created a Covid-19 resource center webpage. It has links to information of particular concern to institutional investors and governance professionals during this critical time. CII will add or update content regularly, so please check back and contact us with any suggestions.
CII Updates Board Accountability, Voting Guideline Resources for Proxy Season

As the 2020 proxy season ramps up, CII has updated key resources including the CII Board Accountability List and the Proxy Voting Guidelines & Stewardship Resources page.

The Board Accountability  List tracks "zombie directors," majority- supported shareowner proposals and failed say-on-pay votes. The 2020 version of the list, which CII will continue to update, features a CalPERS proposal to require a majority vote for the election of directors that received more than 95% support from shareholders at agricultural company Alico and a say-on-pay vote that received less than 18% of the votes at Qualcomm. CII writes to companies on this list where a director fails to receive majority support or a shareowner proposal garners over 50% of votes cast, to ask how the company plans to respond the results.

Additionally, CII updated the Proxy Voting Guidelines & Stewardship Resources to show recent member guideline changes. Highlights include an update to the New York State Common Retirement Fund's guidelines that include greater clarity on the fund's expectations for company disclosure related to climate risks, including strategies in line with the Paris Agreement, TCFD reporting, climate competency on the board, and climate lobbying, as well as a policy that the fund may vote against directors if the company fails to manage and report on these risks. The new guidelines also say that the fund will support proposals that ask for greater disclosure related to corporate culture, human capital management, diversity and cybersecurity. According to the new guidelines, the fund will now withhold support from director nominees at companies with poor governance practices, including unequal voting rights, "over boarding," a lack of diversity, virtual-only meetings and a lack of responsiveness to shareholder proposals that receive majority support.

A number of large asset managers also recently changed their proxy voting guidelines. T. Rowe Price updated its proxy voting guidelines in February with an added emphasis on its engagement with companies. Additionally, Goldman Sachs Asset Management will now withhold support from the chair of the nominating committee if the board does not currently have a woman director, even if there was a woman on the board within the last three years. CII reported on other changes to asset manager guidelines in an Alert story in February.
Virtual Meetings - How's It Going?

The Covid-19 pandemic has prompted companies to adhere to calls from health organizations to observe social distancing. As a result, more and more firms are ditching in-person annual meetings and opting to host virtual ones. Broadridge reports that it originally projected about 400 virtual meetings in 2020, but now already has exceeded 1,300 planned meetings and expects that number to continue to grow.
 
While CII generally opposes virtual-only shareholder meetings, favoring of a hybrid approach, it has stated publicly that it is reasonable for companies to opt for this type of meeting in the middle of the pandemic. However, CII staff is seeking feedback from members on virtual meetings and meeting practices that stood out as being exceptionally well managed, with ample opportunity for shareholder input. CII will report back to all members after proxy season, highlighting the standouts.
 
Please email Connor Garvey ([email protected]) the name of any company you think hosted a shareholder-oriented virtual meeting this year, with a couple of sentences on why the meeting was exceptionally well-run from an investor perspective.
SEC Offers Flexibility on Comment Periods But Will Not Suspend New Rulemaking

Public interest groups, state attorneys and state and local governments are appealing to federal agencies, including the SEC, to suspend rulemakings and extend comment periods. The SEC has indicated that it will provide some flexibility with comment deadlines, but said it plans to forge ahead with rulemakings. 

A group of 21 state attorneys general sent a letter  March 31 to Acting OMBDirector Russell Vought requesting that he direct the "heads of all executive departments and agencies" to "prioritize regulations that are responsive to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its economic impact, while generally freezing all new and pending regulationsother than those that address emergency situations or other urgent circumstances relating to health, safety, financial, or national security matters, or that are required by statutory or judicial deadlines."

A group of 47 public interest groups also sent a letter  March 24 to 10 federal agencies, including the SEC, asking them to suspend all rulemakings not related to the COVID-19 crisis until at least 30 days after the lifting of the current national emergency. "Every federal agency must dedicate all regulatory resources to addressing COVID-19 and the enforcement of rules meant to protect public health, consumers, investors and retirees, and the integrity and stability of the markets," said the letter organized by Americans for Financial reform and signed by groups ranging from the California Reinvestment Coalition to Public Citizen . "The pursuit of any non-crisis-related rulemaking would be a misallocation of limited resources that distracts needed focus from U.S. public health and welfare, and financial stability."

Additionally, on March 20, state and local government groups, led by the National Governors Association, sent a letter to President Trump asking for agencies to extend comment periods on active rulemaking. Doing this "will allow our state and local policymakers to focus on addressing the nation's immediate pandemic response needs and ensure their ability to devote proper consideration of agency regulations," the letter said.

The SEC issued a "Coronavirus (COVID-19) Response" March 20 broadly addressing the commission's approach to allocating resources and conducting oversight and rulemaking. The statement acknowledged that while the commission is engaging on numerous Covid-19 initiatives, it also will continue its regular agency operations, including advancing rulemakings.

In the statement, the SEC also noted that some proposed actions have comment periods that have expired, and said that in the past, staff has considered comments submitted after a comment period closes but before adoption of a final rule or order. The statement listed six pending items on which the SEC will not take final action before May 1, to allow commenters additional time if needed.

SEC Commissioner Allison Herren, in an April 3 statement,   said the commission "should proceed with great caution in considering whether to take regulatory action outside of that called for by the current dire and pressing public health crisis and its ramifications for the public, investors, markets, and the economy." She added that "regulatory action in the near term not related to the exigencies created by COVID-19 would rarely be warranted." Before issuing any regulations, Lee suggested the SEC consider the following:
  • whether an action represents an appropriate use of the commission's resources at a time when the SEC is routinely called upon to take emergency actions;
  • whether an action will unduly tax the already strained resources of investors, market participants, or the public;
  • whether the SEC can adequately assess the economic effect of an action in light of rapidly evolving economic conditions; and
  • whether an action is otherwise critical to advancing the commission's mission.
Lee also recommended that the SEC move quickly to extend current and recently closed comment periods by at least 60 days, starting with those that closed in mid-March. She noted that the SEC's "Coronavirus (COVID-19) Response" only provided a date for earliest agency action on affected rule proposals.
Companies Take Different Approaches to Calls for Paid Sick Leave

Public statements issued by global institutional investors and Oxfam America list paid sick leave as their top request from public companies during the Covid-19 pandemic. While some of the largest U.S. public companies are beginning to offer this benefit to their employees, others are falling short, finds Just Capital, which tracks and analyzes businesses' behavior. Overall, data https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ebs2.pdf from the Department of Labor shows four in 10 hourly workers do not have access to paid sick leave.
 
A group of 195 global institutional investors including public pensions, asset management firms and faith-based funds, issued a Statement on Coronavirus Response March 26 urging companies to adopt measures to protect their workforces, communities, businesses and the markets as a whole. The statement, which was coordinated by Domini Impact Investments, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) and the Office of the New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, urged companies to make emergency paid leave available to all employees, including temporary, part time and subcontracted workers.

Oxfam America's April 2 blog post  on the role of business in addressing the Covid-19 crisis provided a checklist of what companies should do to address the health and economic impacts of the pandemic. "Just six months ago, the Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs from 181 leading US companies, said it was re-defining the purpose of the corporation for the benefit of not just shareholders, but also communities, employees, suppliers, and customers. The COVID-19 crisis will reveal which companies are just paying lip service to the statement and which ones will put people above profits," Oxfam America said in the blog post. The number one recommendation in Oxfam's checklist is to e nsure that all employees have paid sick leave and paid family and medical leave.
 
Just 37% of the 100 largest U.S. public companies offer paid sick leave to their employees, reports  Just Capital. All but two of the 36 companies that Just Capital lists as offering paid sick leave instituted these new policies in response to the Covid-19 crisis. (XPO and Darden Restaurants are expanding their existing leave policies.) Of the the 36 companies with leave policies, three offer 15 days of paid leave, eight offer 14 days and 12 offer 10 days. AT&T gives its employees 20 days and Verizon offers 40 days. Of the remaining companies, Apple is now providing unlimited leave (see below) and 10 companies did not specify the number of days they provide.
 
This benefit is extended to all workers at 20 companies, hourly workers at nine companies and salaried employees at two. Intel offers it to all employees as well as to its contractors. McDonald's offers up to 14 days of paid leave to employees at corporate-owned restaurants, but this policy does not apply to franchise employees, and more than 90% of McDonald's locations are franchises.
 
Just Capital indicates that half of the companies on the list will pay their workers 100% of their base pay while on sick leave. How much the other half will cover is not clearly disclosed.
 
A recent Business Insider article  takes a closer look at 22 major U.S. public companies that recently changed their paid family leave policies in response to the Covid-19 crisis. The following firms now have some of the most generous paid sick leave policies:
  • Apple announced unlimited sick leave for all full-time and part-time hourly workers. On March 13, the company also said it would close all stores and pay all employees normally through the duration of the closure.
  • Lowes is encouraging employees who feel sick to stay home. Anyone quarantined or diagnosed with the coronavirus will be able to take up to 14 paid days off. The days off will not count against the employee's sick, vacation or holiday time, and employees will be paid for their sick leave until their physician says they can return to work. Employees at medium or high risk of contracting the virus, due to contact with an individual with the virus or travel to a high-risk area, will also receive 14 days of paid time off, to be spent in quarantine.
  • Starbucks is paying workers for 30 days, whether or not they come to work, as well as offering catastrophe pay, mental health and sick pay benefits and childcare support.
  • Postmates unveiled a "fleet relief fund" to help couriers pay for the cost of medical check-ups. In order to take advantage of the fund, couriers do not have to have been quarantined or diagnosed with the coronavirus. Postmates couriers who have made at least one delivery in certain states in the last two weeks will be able to use money from the fund to cover medical costs.
Poison Pill Adoptions Continue to Pick Up Amid Covid Crisis

As CII's Governance Alert reported March 26, some companies are responding to depressed share prices related at least in part to Covid-19 by adopting shareholder rights plans (poison pills). At that time, we discussed pills at Occidental Petroleum, Williams Companies, Delek's U.S. Holdings and Dave & Buster's Entertainment. The pills at the latter three companies are of greater concern because they do not state that the company intends to submit them for shareholder approval.

Other companies adopting pills in the last few weeks include AAR, Barnes & Noble Education, The Chef's Warehouse, Chico's FAS, CommVault, Evofem Biosciences, Fluor, Gannett, Global Eagle Entertainment, Six Flags Entertainment, Spirit Airlines, Synalloy, Tailored Brands, Tempur Sealy, Viad and Whiting Petroleum. In addition, Hexcel and Woodward, which are in the process of merging, each adopted pills, and Perma-Fix Environmental Services extended a pill. Triggers range from 4.99% to 32%, with most at 10%. Seven have provisions that set 10% as the trigger, with a clause permitting passive investors to own up to 20% without triggering the pill. Except for Gannett and Whiting Petroleum, which adopted so-called NOL pills that protect tax loss assets, these pills all expire within one year, which is encouraging.

Although Occidental Petroleum's pill includes a prompt shareholder approval provision and a qualified offer provision that can bypass the pill in certain circumstances, the shareholder-friendly OXY model generally has not been used by other companies.

On April 8, in a document entitled Impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic: ISS Policy Guidance , ISS noted that its "existing policy approach is already appropriately flexible to take account for the adoption of poison pills in the face of genuine, short-term potential threat situations such as during the current pandemic." ISS said:

ISS benchmark policy encourages boards to put poison pills to a shareholder vote, but provides companies with latitude in adopting short-term rights plans with reasonable triggers in response to active threats. A severe stock price decline as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be considered valid justification in most cases for adopting a pill of less than one year in duration; however, boards should provide detailed disclosure regarding their choice of duration, or on any decisions to delay or avoid putting plans to a shareholder vote beyond that period. The triggers for such plans will continue to be closely assessed within the context of the rationale provided and the length of the plan adopted, among other factors

ISS still may make a recommendation in opposition to a poorly formulated pill. The proxy advisor is opposing the election of Williams Companies Chairman Stephen Bergstrom at the company's April 28 annual meeting, citing a poison pill with a 5% trigger and no shareholder approval requirement.

Sabastian Niles, a partner Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, told  Bloomberg News that he welcomed the ISS guidance. He said that the threat of "abusive bidders" is real, and that tailored rights plans can strike the right balance.. "The ISS guidance also confirms our view that company-specific circumstances and evidence of emerging or present threats provide the most favorable case for decisive action," Niles said. "The ISS guidance should not, however, be construed as a blank check for all companies to rush or race to adopt a rights plan prematurely -- with pills, timing and context are everything."
Policy, Governance Blunders Add Bitter Taste as Luckin Coffee Investors Swallow Accounting Fraud

Late last week, Beijing-based Luckin Coffee announced it had formed a special committee to investigate whether 37-year old COO and board member Jian Liu and his subordinates had orchestrated more than $300 million in fraudulent sales beginning in the second quarter of 2019. EY Hua Ming, the China-based member firm of EY Global that serves as independent auditors of Luckin Coffee, later told The Wall Street Journal that while auditing Luckin's 2019 books it identified management's fabricated transactions, which it passed to the audit committee.

As recently as February, the company dismissed as "meritless" an anonymous report alleging inflated revenues and overstated expenses. "As a data-driven company, Luckin Coffee is committed to providing full and accurate disclosure to investors," the company said in an SEC filing. Fast forward to last week's revelations, when the company voiced a commitment to take "appropriate measures to improve internal controls."

Luckin's policies and governance background should have made headlines from the start. Despite operating 2,370 locations in 28 Chinese cities prior to its IPO, Luckin Coffee qualified as an "emerging growth company" under the JOBS Act of 2012, as amended by the 2015 FAST Act, and chose to opt in to that exemption. This decision allowed Luckin to skip the attestation requirement under Section 404 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, which ensures robust internal controls over financial reporting-a practice experts broadly regard as critically valuable to financial statement integrity.

Most emerging growth companies have external auditors whose work is inspected by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). That is not the case with Luckin and other U.S.-listed Chinese companies. The PCAOB has never inspected the work of Luckin's external auditor, a Chinese affiliate of Ernst & Young. The Sarbanes Oxley Act created the PCAOB to, among other things, conduct inspections of U.S.-listed companies to assess their compliance with U.S. law and professional standards. The SEC and the PCAOB for many years have sought access to audit work papers and related documents of Chinese firms, but Chinese authorities have refused access.

In 2018, CII requested that the PCAOB consider examining whether some or all of PCAOB-registered firms in China should be deregistered. Since then, the PCAOB has worked with SEC Chair Jay Clayton and SEC staff to discuss with the largest U.S. audit firms audit quality issues. This week, CII inquired in writing whether EY Hua Ming , which performed the Luckin audit, should remain registered, stating "it is not clear to us that the PCAOB can have confidence in processes of firms that it has not been permitted to inspect for more than a decade."

Luckin operates mainly through a variable interest entity (VIE), which is 83%-owned by the company's CEO. The Cayman-incorporated Luckin Coffee Inc. (the listed company) claims to control the VIE through contractual arrangements. The Cayman-incorporated Luckin Coffee Inc.'s American Depository Shares began trading on Nasdaq with SEC approval in May 2019, less than 18 months after the company's October 2017 founding. As such, the traditional practice that IPO registration statements include at least three years of audited financials did not apply; Luckin's prospectus did not have even two years of audited financials.

As a Foreign Private Issuer registered with the SEC, Luckin is exempt from quarterly reporting under the Exchange Act. Nasdaq rules require the company to file financial information on a quarterly basis, but those filings are less timely and less comprehensive than 10-Qs.

Why did the board not detect these fraudulent activities? A key reason could be that Audit Committee Chair Sean Shao was busy chairing five additional audit committees at the same time, all of which are publicly traded companies: 21 Vianet Group, Jumei International Holding, LightIn The Box Holdings, UT Starcom Holdings and China Biologic Products. The committee had just two other members, one of whom is not independent.

Luckin also provides a fresh example of investor risk caused by large-scale share pledging arrangements with senior executives. Goldman Sachs announced April 6 it was facilitating the sale of shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars that had been pledged by Chair Charles Zhengyao Lu and CEO Jenny Zhiya Quian in connection with a margin loan. Remarkably, the fire sale is expected to have zero impact on Lu's voting rights due to a related conversion of Class B ordinary shares into American Depository Shares. Without question, the sale of tens of millions of shares in order to post collateral put additional strain on the company's share price at an exceptionally vulnerable time.

Lu's control is maximized through Luckin's dual-class vote structure, which gives him 10 votes per share. While Mainland Chinese exchanges did not permit dual-class structures at the time of Luckin's IPO, Nasdaq did. The exchange rejected CII's 2012 petition for a listing standard requiring equal voting rights for future newly listed companies. Nasdaq also rejected CII's 2018 petition staking out a compromise - a requirement that future listed dual-class companies adopt a mechanism to "sunset" the differential structure within seven years or provide a referendum vote allowing shareholders to prolong the dual-class structure if a majority - voting on a one-share, one-vote basis - preferred it.
State Street CEO Tells Companies to Maintain Focus on Long-Term ESG Issues

State Street Global Advisors President and CEO Cyrus sent a letter  March 31 to board members at SSGA's portfolio companies urging them to maintain a focus on ESG issues during the pandemic.

He acknowledged that SSGA's engagement conversations will shift to more immediate ESG issues such as employee health, serving and protecting customers and ensuring the overall safety of supply chains. But he also urged board members to make sure that material ESG issues continue to be part of the bigger picture and to clearly articulate them as part of their companies' overall business strategy.

Specifically, Taraporevala encouraged directors to:
  • refrain from undertaking undue risks that are beneficial in the short term but harm longer-term financial stability;
  • communicate to investors Covid-19's short- and medium-term potential on their business, overall operations and supply chains, including management preparedness and scenario-planning and analysis;
  • articulate how Covid-19 might influence their companies' approach to material ESG issues as part of their long-term business strategies; and
  • when conducting virtual annual meetings allow shareholders to have active and robust interactions with management and the board at appropriate times.
Upcoming Meetings that Feature Proposals Filed by CII Members

Each proxy season, CII highlights upcoming annual meetings at which shareholder proposals filed by CII members will come to votes.

April 23

Pfizer - Oxfam America is asking  Pfizer to prepare a report, updated annually, disclosing 1) company policies and procedures governing lobbying, both direct and indirect; 2) payments used for direct, indirect or grassroots lobbying; 3) Pfizer's membership in, and payments to, tax-exempt groups that endorse model legislation; and 4) a description of the board's decision making process for making payments. The board recommends a vote against the proposal. Shareholders voted on similar proposals in the past two years. In 2018 it received 33.5% of the votes cast, while the 2019 proposal received 29.8%  support.

April 25

Fastenal  - As You Sow is  asking  (p. 33) the company to prepare a report assessing workforce diversity, including metrics on the percentages of workers by gender categories for global operations, and by racial and ethnic group categories for domestic operations, disaggregated into management and non-managerial job-levels. The board opposes the proposal, highlighting initiatives it has taken to affirm its commitment to diversity, including enhanced hiring processes and disclosure of statistics on workforce demographics on its website. This is the second year this kind of proposal has appeared on Fastenal's proxy statement. Last year, a similar proposal received 41.4% of votes cast.

April 27
 
Genuine Parts  - As You Sow is  asking  (p. 55) the company to report on its policies, performance and improvement targets related to human capital management. Specifically, the resolution asks the company to use SASB's sector-specific metrics and guidelines on workforce diversity and inclusion and labor practices requirements. The board opposes the proposal, saying that it does not feel the metrics requested in the proposal are a good measure of its commitment to diversity and equal opportunity and that it fears the disclosures would be misused by competitors.

Seaboard  - CalPERS is asking  (p. 19) the company's board to take the necessary steps to provide for a majority vote standard for the election of director in uncontested elections. The board recommends shareholders vote against the proposal.

United Technologies  - The United Steelworkers, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund are asking   the company's board to create a committee of employee and management representatives to report to the board on the community impacts of the closing of the company's manufacturing facilities and alternatives that can be developed to help mitigate those impacts in the future. The board recommends that shareholders vote against the proposal.
 
April 28
 
Charter Communications  - The New York State Common Retirement Fund is asking  (p . 64) the company to take the steps necessary to require that the chair of the board be an independent director. The board opposes the proposal. This is the second time the company has received a proposal to require an independent board chair. In 2018, a similar proposal received 20.9% support.
 
Wells Fargo  - The New York State Common Retirement Fund is asking  (p. 107) the board to prepare a report, at reasonable cost, disclosing: 1) whether and how the company has identified employees or positions, individually or as part of a group, who are eligible to receive incentive-based compensation that is tied to metrics that could have the ability to expose Wells Fargo to possible material losses, as determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles; (2) if the company has not made such an identification, an explanation of why it has not done so. The board opposes the proposal, saying that its Incentive Compensation Risk Management (ICRM) program, combined with the disclosure in its proxy statements about enhancements to our performance management and incentive compensation program are responsive to the incentive compensation risk concerns raised in this proposal without providing an extensive level of detail that might be sensitive for competitive, privacy, and other reasons. A similar proposal received 21.4% of the votes cast in 2019.

April 29
 
Pilgrim's Pride  - Oxfam America is asking  the company's board to prepare a human rights due diligence process to assess, identify, prevent and mitigate actual and potential adverse human rights impacts. The board recommends that shareholders vote against the proposal. Last year a similar proposal received 12.4% of the votes cast.
 
April 30
 
Weis Markets -  CalPERS is asking  (p. 27) the board to take the necessary steps to provide for a majority vote standard for the election of director in uncontested elections. The board recommends shareholders vote against the proposal. Last year a similar proposal received 28.7% of the votes cast.
 
May 1
 
CMS Energy  - The New York State Common Retirement Fund is  asking  (p. 72) the company to report semi-annually on its political spending policies and contributions, including payments to trade associations. The board opposes the proposal, saying its current policies and disclosures are already robust. This is the fourth consecutive year that CMS has received this type of proposal. In 2019, a proposal to report on political contributions received 34.3% of votes cast and in 2018, a similar proposal garnered 45.2% support from shareholders. In 2017, this kind of proposal received 36.2% of the vote.
New Podcast Episode

CII's Monthly Financial Regulation & Corporate Governance Update with Jeff Mahoney for March 2 - April 1
In this episode, CII General Counsel Jeff Mahoney discusses some of CII's advocacy efforts and regulatory/legislative activities for the period of March 2 - April 1 relevant to the Administration's efforts to reform the U.S. financial regulatory system.

FYI

Invitation to Participate in US SIF's Biennial Survey of Sustainable Investing
The US SIF Foundation has launched the survey for the 2020 Report on US Sustainable and Impact Investing Trends . The biennial "Trends Report" is the definitive overview of the U.S. institutions and organizations that pursue corporate engagement and consider environmental, social and governance criteria to generate long-term competitive financial returns. (Here are highlights from the 2018 edition .)

US SIF encourages CII members to participate in this initiative, so that their engagement in sustainable and responsible investing is fully reflected in the final report. The US SIF staff has sent a confidential, customized survey link to 235 public and Taft-Hartley funds. If you were designated as the recipient, you recently received an email message and link from [email protected].

If you did not receive the invitation, but want to make sure that your institution is included, simply contact [email protected] with "Count me" in the subject line and your name and the name of your organization in the message.
News Clips for April 2-9











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CII is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association of U.S. asset owners, primarily pension funds, state and local entities charged with investing public assets and endowments and foundations, with combined assets of $4 trillion. Our associate members include non-U.S. asset owners with more than $4 trillion in assets, and a range of asset managers with more than $35 trillion in assets under management. CII members share a commitment to healthy public capital markets and strong corporate governance.