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Viewpoint

Articles and commentary by Pax World Mutual Fund's President and CEO, Joe Keefe and Julie Gorte, Ph.D, Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing.

• Shareholder Advocacy Success Stories
  Posted on March 9, 2010
  

  by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Guidance on Climate Risks and Opportunities A major highlight of Pax’s public policy advocacy over the past year is the January 2010 vote of the SEC to issue interpretive guidance on climate risk and opportunity disclosure.1 There are many ways to pursue sustainability in the […]

• The End of the Broker Vote, or the Beginnings of Democracy in America
  Posted on August 14, 2009
  

  by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Early in July 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finally ended what Beth Young, a governance expert at The Corporate Library, called its “inexplicable waffling” on the last vestige of broker voting: director elections. The rule came in response to a petition from the […]

• Data, Efficient Markets and Sustainability: Connecting the Federal Dots by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on May 14, 2009
  

  One of the foundations of modern finance is the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMF), which holds that financial markets are informationally efficient, incorporating all known or relevant information about traded securities. Yet the history of financial markets is studded with revelations of major market participants (and their regulators) ignoring available information, or having no access at […]

• Bankruptcy Relief for Homeowners at Risk of Foreclosure by Joseph F. Keefe, President & CEO
  Posted on April 26, 2009
  

  The United States Senate will likely take up a housing bill next week. The so-called “cramdown” provision – allowing bankruptcy courts to restructure mortgages, including reducing the principal – should be embraced as a relatively simple, tax-free and absolutely essential component. Since 1971, when my company launched the nation’s first socially responsible mutual fund, investors […]

• Tone Deaf: Executive Compensation and The Economy by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on March 31, 2009
  

  Outrage over CEO compensation is one of those predictable events, like the annual return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano. But this year it’s as if a flock of flamingos descended on the old mission, thanks to AIG. While AIG’s recent antics are probably going to hold the egregiousness record for some time, there […]

• Sustainable Investing and the Financial Crisis by Joseph F. Keefe, President & CEO
  Posted on December 16, 2008
  

  Speculative bubbles, before they inevitably burst, are fundamentally the triumph of short-term thinking over long-term thinking, and of short-term investors over long-term investors.The Financial Crisis of 2008 may be unique and unprecedented but it shares elements in common with previous market upheavals, such as the crisis of 1997–1998 or the bursting of the Internet bubble […]

• Sustainable Investing as an Emergent Investment Discipline by Joseph F. Keefe, President & CEO
  Posted on September 23, 2008
  

  The conference we are gathered at is called “Sustainable Investing 2008.” Had this same conference been held a few years ago, it likely would have used the term, “Socially Responsible Investing,” or SRI, to denote the subject matter. Or perhaps “Ethical Investing,” or “Mission-based investing,” or some other variation.The Social Investment Forum—the trade industry association […]

• Avoiding a Human Trafficking Jam by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing and Molly Mahoney Betournay, Lead Sustainability Research Analyst
  Posted on August 29, 2008
  

  A reputation, Benjamin Franklin once said, is like glass and china: it’s easy to crack and never well mended. In the business world, a company’s reputation is intimately tied to its brand, which is one of the key sources of long-term value.1
  Brand, or corporate reputation, is a fundamentally asymmetric thing. A good brand takes years […]

• Sustainable Investing and Values by Joseph F. Keefe, President & CEO
  Posted on March 17, 2008
  

  “In the Spring/Summer 2007 issue of The Green Money Journal, I wrote an article (“From SRI to Sustainable Investing”) arguing that sustainable investing is the next stage in the evolution of socially responsible investing (SRI). This shift from SRI to sustainable investing is not only taking shape in the real world, but the interest in […]

• Ecology and the Challenge of Sustainable Investing by Joseph F. Keefe, President & CEO
  Posted on February 29, 2008
  

  My remarks today will focus on whether sustainable investing can play a significant role in halting the dramatic decline of the world’s natural environment, including the world’s forests, the preservation of which is the focus of your work at the Pinchot Institute. My simple thesis is that sustainable investing can indeed play such a role, […]

• Alpha or Beta? The Financial Value of Sustainability by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on October 24, 2007
  

  Every profession probably has its gotcha question, the $64,000 “what did he know and when did he know it” conversation-stopper. In the world of socially responsible investing, the question comes down to performance: “Can SRI possibly perform as well as mainstream investing?” There is a permutation of this question aimed at companies (“Do responsible corporate […]

• Democracy in America: Corporate Proxies, the SEC, and the Corporation by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on August 1, 2007
  

  In 2002, the government of Iraq deemed Saddam Hussein the winner in its national election, having won 100 percent of the vote. It wasn’t entirely clear how the ballots were counted, and apparently in some northern provinces there were no ballots at all, according to the CNN story. CNN also dryly noted, “Saddam was the […]

• The Razor’s Edge by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on June 6, 2007
  

  It’s annual meeting season, when corporate management and boards meet with shareholders. That means it’s also the season to focus on executive compensation, with pay-watchers looking for the most outrageous stories like birdwatchers awaiting the arrival of the swallows at San Juan Capistrano. Sadly, it doesn’t take powerful optics to see that executive compensation has […]

• From SRI to Sustainable Investing by Joseph F. Keefe, President & CEO
  Posted on June 4, 2007
  

  Over the next 15 years, I think we will see a transition from the old world of socially responsible investing to the new world of sustainable investing. By sustainable investing, I mean the full integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into financial analysis and decision-making.
  This transition is critical if our industry is to […]

• Admission Impossible: Or, What Brilliant People Do When They Don’t Know Something by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on May 10, 2007
  

  Warren Buffett, aka the Oracle of Omaha, is a very smart man, and his investors are happily loyal. So when he says things, we all listen, and many of us assume he’s right. But I have yet to find anyone so smart that they’re incapable of being wrong, and in my opinion Warren Buffett is […]

• The Board Whisperer by Julie Fox Gorte, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Sustainable Investing
  Posted on May 9, 2007
  

  Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier is recommending that other investors withhold votes for Michael Boskin, a member of the board of ExxonMobil. While it is hardly unprecedented for a shareowner to withhold votes for a director, this is perhaps the first time a major institutional asset owner has so clearly targeted a board member for […]