Event summaries

3-9 December

Parliament of the World’s Religions, Melbourne

Faith Consistent Investing

During the 3iG workshop three speakers gave their view on faith consistent investing.

Dr. Ali, School of Business at Dar al-Hekma College, spoke about how the main social goals and responsibilities of Islam are to "protect religion, honor, property, self, and life." Dr. Ali explained observed that Shariah law prohibits investing in companies that promote the sale of drugs, pornography, alcohol, or meat that is not halal (lawful). Islamic law promotes conservative spending and does not permit speculative investing, such as gambling. Dr. Ali also explained that the Quran specifies that loans should be provided out of generosity and charity, and therefore forbids the collection of interest because it exploits the indebted. Islamic law also stipulates that each party involved in a financial transaction must share both the associated risks and profits. Dr. Ali insisted that microfinance is a joint social responsibility of governments, NGO's, financial communities, and international and national development organizations. She called for such groups, along with academics and universities, to establish programs that provide technical assistance and train people in economics and finance.

Standing: Dr. Tariq Cheema (left) and Reverent Séamus Finn OMI (right)
Sitting: Dr. Amal Tigani Ali (left) and Michiel Hardon - moderator (right)

Rev. Séamus Finn, a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and a board member of the International Interfaith Investment Group (3iG), as well as of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), followed Dr. Ali with a short presentation about the history and activities of these two organizations. Rev. Finn described the ICCR as "a coalition of more than 300 faith based institutional investors including denominations religious communities, pension funds and foundations who have come together to exercise an active ownership of their assets and investments," and 3iG's mission "to promote faith consistent investment and collaboration among the world's faith traditions."

Rev. Finn stressed the role of governments to promote the common good and within that framework to regulate and direct financial systems so they that are not simply geared towards the profit of few, but meet the needs of all people. In response to the recent global financial crisis both 3iG and ICCR have submitted recommendations about the roles of both sovereign and global authorities in both responding the crisis and providing the needed legislative and regulatory reforms necessary to guarantee future stability and needed liquidity.

Like Dr. Ali, Rev. Finn also spoke about the challenge of training grassroots faith based organizations in economic literacy and investing just as they have been trained in political literacy and activity. Rev. Finn described the absence of "understanding of the power of assets and money" as a lost opportunity for faith based institutions to extend the message of their core beliefs into management of these assets. He said that, while many organizations have made significant efforts to advance political education and action through their members, they have neglected economic literacy.

Rev Finn presented, in summary form, one of the latest resources that 3iG has prepared. This consists of a Seven Step process to help faith institutions introduce and practice faith consistent investing. The manual which will be published shortly and also available on the website is intended to provide a guided process for any faith institution, of whatever size, that is interested in pursuing this work.

Tariq Cheema, the CEO of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, claimed that there is a universal key to faith consistent investing that involves "keeping three things in mind: the Creator, conscience, and community." Cheema spoke of how social justice requires reaching areas where the need is most critical. Cheema identified specific development sectors where faith consistent investment was most necessary, which included water and energy efficiency, food security, and education. He also emphasized that, while compassion is a driving force of such work, there is a practical need for increased interfaith cooperation and capacity building amongst humanitarian organizations.

According to Cheema, despite the fact that faith based organizations provide assistance to more than ¾ of the world's population, they have not traditionally been involved in financial policy making circles. In recent years, more emphasis has been placed on values and ethics, representing an opening for faith groups to bring their work to the table and have their voices heard.

During a conversation with participants, both Dr. Ali and Rev. Finn stressed the need to create "ethical committees" on the boards of universities in order to ensure that their endowments and investment practices are socially and environmentally responsible. Both panelists agreed that university boards of trustees tend to be a particularly difficult and resistant to the introduction of these practices into their investment practices. It is ironic that these institutions who have a reputation for the pursuit of best practices and innovation continue to resist these efforts. Rev. Finn pointed to the fact that student campaigns have often been important in challenging university boards to make changes in this area.

2-4 November

2009 Windsor Event

Celebration: Many Heavens, One Earth: Faith Commitments for a Living Planet

Celebration: Many Heavens, One Earth:

Early November 2009 the Alliance of Religion and Conservation (ARC), together with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) organised the celebration of the Faiths’ involvement in sustaining the planet and diminishing climate change. 3iG, being partner of ARC, is the supporting organisation for religious institutions in their efforts to deploy their assets for a more environmentally sustainable planet.

Under the header ‘Many Heavens, one Earth’, over 200 top-level theological leaders, environmental scientists, foundations, international institutions and NGOs gathered to build partnerships aiming for a more sustainable planet. At the highlight of the celebration, His Excellency Mr Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General and HRH The Prince Philip, sealed and blessed the religious groups that announced their 7 Year Plans to ‘Protect the Living Planet’. Amongst other things, the plans include carbon footprint reduction of worship places, education during religious services, decrease of water usage before Muslim prayers, eco-twinning and fair trade sacred gifts.

In his speech, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon highlighted the power religious institutions have when it comes to investing. He stated “You are the third largest category of investors in the world (...) Your potential impact is enormous. You can establish green religious buildings. Invest ethically in sustainable products. Purchase only environmentally-friendly goods.” 3iG wishes to answer this call for action by committing to work side by side with the faiths in their movement for environmental change.

The first Religious Leader amongst the participants that stood up and replied to this plea was His Eminence the Archbishop of Johannesburg, who, together with the South African Church Investor Groups, will start investment practices related to green building and savings.

Apart from the spoken words, the celebration included performances of artists from all over the world, visualising the creation, crisis and recreation of the earth via different forms of music, performance and dance. Performances alternated with prayers and devotion. Shinto worship, Gospel singing together with Jewish singing, Taoist and Baha’i scriptures, Islamic readings and many more acts demonstrated the Faiths united goal to contribute to the Living Planet.

3iG ‘performed’ in a more practical and hands-on way by presenting Faith Consistent Investing as being one of the most impactful ways to practice proper environmental behaviour. 3iG held two presentations at workshops, hosted a round (diner)table discussion and held a plenary speech on Faith Consistent Investing and the potential role 3iG can play for many religious institutions. 3iG asked religious groups to include ethical investing in their 7 Year Plans and has provided support via the 3iG membership network. Katinka van Cranenburgh, Secretary General of 3iG, emphasized to the religious institutions that ‘no matter what your current investment practices are, any religious investor can take a first step towards faith consistent investing, and every step will help in reaching our environmental goals’.

For the full speech of His Excellency Mr Ban Ki Moon , please click on this UN web page: http://content.undp.org/go/newsroom/2009/november/religions-take-a-bold-step-towards-a-low-carbon-future.en

THANKS:
3iG wishes to express many thanks to Martin Palmer and the ARC team for putting together this extraordinary celebration and would like to compliment the fact that they were able to unite an astonishing group of inspiring world leaders.

3iG wishes to thank His Excellency UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for enabling this event and, above all, for emphasizing on the role of religious leaders as investors and calling upon them to take action as asset owners.

16 June

Faith and Capitalism Conference, London Central Mosque

Money, God, morals?
What advice do the world faiths give on ethical investment?

Rabbi Mark Goldsmith:

Is it possible to do good while making money? And if so, how?

That was the question 130 of us – Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists and Hindus, met to discuss a week today at Faith in Capitalism, a conference at the London Central Mosque. Our number included bankers, investment managers, the trustees of faith-based charities, treasurers for religious groups, and academics expert on faith and finance.

Stephen Timms, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and John Battle, the Prime Minister's envoy on interfaith affairs came too.

The day was co-organised by the Three Faiths Forum and the group I represent 3iG, an international, interfaith investment group that advises on how best faith groups may invest their holdings.

Often faith groups manage long-term investments, usually in pension or development funds, and it makes sense to take an interfaith approach to the global economy, made up as it is of large corporation and companies. As the Chief Rabbi has pointed out, of the 100 largest economies today 51 are corporations and 49 are nation states

First we identified the values world faiths share, with relevance to the economy, such as stewardship for the earth (environmental values) and sustaining human dignity (the treatment of workers).

How does this impact on investment? One example might be investing in the energy sector – as a large, pretty stable sector this is a natural investment option for long-term investors.

At 3iG our main concern is to look at whether a faith group’s investments reflect its values. In the case of energy investments, Faith groups should be looking at how different suppliers perform environmentally and favour those which are responsible. But how can you measure and trust the environmental claims made by companies?

The Church of England, one of the leaders in the field of ethical investing, publishes guides to ethical investing online which includes information on the environmental practices of businesses in which they invest.

Another issue for faith investors is whether a company, especially in the manufacturing or retail sector respects the dignity of its workers. One 3iG member Fr Seamus Finn, a member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, for example, travels the world to check on the working conditions of employees in the companies the order invests in.

Faith-based investments are an evolving phenomenon. Many faith organisations have yet to set a Socially Responsible investment policy consistent with their faith teachings. Often this is because treasurers of faith organisations are very concerned that to do so will lose value in those investments.

This can lead to inconsistencies. for example, faith organisations which pray for peace investing, for example, in armaments manufacturers, others which pray for health investing in businesses which restrict healthcare availability when they could be encouraging the best practitioners and those which pray for the release of captives take no account of the human rights compliance records of the companies in which their ministers’ pensions are invested.

In Britain, Christian groups have become the most sophisticated SRI investors. The Church of England, the Methodist Church and others publish their SRI policies for members each year. Jews, Hindus and Muslims can learn from them. Speaking at the conference Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatullah, who was the senior imam of Finchley Mosque before become Sharia advisor to a number of banks said that as well as ensuring that they avoid usury, Muslims should ensure that their investments are in businesses with a strong sense of ethics.

Speakers at the conference, including Adam Ognall, Deputy Director of the UK Social Investment and Finance Association and Helen Wildsmith from CCLA, the largest faith based Investment manager are convinced that they can. Together we could be a force for business engagement and change.

Click here to open the Faith in Capitalism Programme

27 & 28 May 2009

3iG/TBLI Conference on Faith Consistent Investing - Yokohama

At the TBLI Asia conference in Yokohama in May 2009, 3iG organised a workshop on “Faith Consistent Investing – When Religious Leaders and Financial Institutions join”. The workshop was aimed at both introducing faith organisations to Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) as well as educating financial institutions in regards to how religious values influence investment decisions; in order for the financial community to create financial products and services for the faith community.

This workshop was unique within the TBLI conference. The participants (as well as the translators!) were confronted with different jargon than what was used in the plenary sessions and other workshops. Technical terms such as ESG, PRI and SRI were replaced by spiritual and religious terms including God, mental wealth, peace, the spirit of nature and the divine forest. Starting off as a more philosophical debate, the workshop ended with concrete, action-oriented, religious financial needs and systems.

The first out of four speakers was Mr Hironobu Katori, who presented his views on behalf of the Shintos (also referred to as Jinja Honcho). The Shinto’s faith place an emphasis on environmental preservation activities of companies in the light of the general Japanese view of nature. Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan and the Jinja Honcho movement counts over 100.000 followers in Japan. However, the ‘religion of the forest’ has more ‘practitioners’ in Japan, as it is regarded by most Japanese as a lifestyle more than as a religion. Within the current global movements on Climate Change reduction, the Shinto’s play a significant role. Given the fact that over two-third of Japan is still covered by forests, Shinto’s have proven to retain sustainable forestry despite the country’s industrial growth and the pressure from players in the global market economy to transform woodlands into more profitable industries. Although the Shinto’s currently do not play a direct role in improving corporate responsibility, they continue to educate and emphasize the respect one should have for nature.

Second, Reverent Waichi Hoshina gave a Buddhist view on true richness. As a religious leader within the Rissho Kosei-Kai, one of the newly developed religions (since 1938) in Japan, Mr Hoshina explained how ‘today’s Japanese Buddhist’ believe money matters should be handled. Money and economic markets are inevitable for human life. However, “people should not live for money but money should exist for people’s life”. He expressed that there is a widespread misunderstanding that richness has to do with money whilst true richness refers to mental health. Moneymaking is not wrong, however, there is no need to make more money than ‘necessary’. If one does, one should share this with the less fortunate in this world. Mr Hoshina gave some examples of Rissho Kosei-Kai charity. When asked if the SRI concept was one of the solutions for Rissho Kosei-Kai, Mr Hoshina explained that this was not currently practised, as the concept was new to their organisation. However, this workshop might actually be the start of an additional solution this Buddhist group will practise, in order to contribute to improving the social and environmental cause.

Third, Reverent Michael Siegel gave the Christian view on faith-consistent investing. As a member of the Christian Devine World Missionaries, the Japanese Association of Religion and Ethics and professor at the Nanzan University in Japan, Rev Siegel is an experienced, Japanese-speaking,  Australian in this field. During his time served in Rome, he was the ethical investment advisor to many Catholic orders. The history of Christian investing was born out of the decreasing number of donating church members and the need for funds to remain in the churches and the volunteer missionary work in developing countries. Largely debated within church walls, the catholic orders decided to start investing, but not without a minimum set of criteria. Negative screening was later tied with positive business engagement, from shareholder voting to divesting. Discussing the types of investment practises a faith institution could make, Rev Siegel made the distinction between personal morals and religious values.

Lastly, Mr Dato’ Mohamed Iqbal gave the Muslim view on banking: Islamic banking. As a trustee of the Taqwa foundation in Malaysia, an Islamic disaster relief foundation, Mr Iqbal explained how global Islamic financing might have prevented or at least mitigated the currently existing financial ‘casino’ structure. Islamic investing is investing to a strict set of religious (Sharia) rules which prohibits usury, the concept of receiving interest as well as gharar, uncertainty or risk-taking. Basic Islamic financing promotes risk-sharing and total transparency of what one invests in. Investment funds such as the notorious mortgage funds with several layered constructions and thirty times over-capitalisation have therefore never been near an Islamic investment option.

The audience questions revealed participation from experts in the field of faith, ethics and capitalism, including thinkers from Confucianism, Taoism, and Hinduism. The workshop demonstrated a great deal of overlapping consensus amongst the various faith leaders. Their approaches clearly vary; however, the need for future dialogue and cooperation with one-another was obvious to all parties involved. The workshop revealed a clear interfaith voice reaching out for sustainable moneymaking and money sharing, all with the goal of mental and spiritual wealth.  We look forward to hearing the progression at the next TBLI Asia meeting in Tokyo, May 2010.

3iG would like to thank Good Bankers (www.goodbankers.co.jp) and TBLI (www.tbliconference.com) for making the workshop a success.

For the full presentations & speeches, please click here.

For more information please visit the conference website: http://www.tbliconference.com/