The UK-based Church Investors Group has published a new resource to support church investors in the process of working with their investment managers to ensure that their investments reflect and promote their organisation’s ethical values.
Working with your investment managers: A guide to support church investors considering faith-consistent approaches outlines what is involved in manager selection, manager appointment and manager monitoring and provides practical guidance to help ensure that their values, beliefs, and policies are integrated in the management of their investments. It does not represent investment advice, which is the responsibility of each church investor to seek as appropriate.
The Church Investors Group (CIG) represents institutional investors from many mainstream Church denominations and church-related charities. The CIG has 67 members, predominantly drawn from the UK and Ireland, with combined investment assets of over £26bn.
Its aims are to encourage the formulation of investment policies based on Christian ethical principles, to encourage responsible business practice through engagement with company managements and to share information and views on ethical matters related to investment.
As Working with your investment managers says, church investors have specific beliefs and ethical values they often would like to see reflected in the companies in which they invest and in an overall investment approach. These can include some or all of:
Not supporting or benefiting from particular activities. For example, church investors may not wish to invest in activities such as armaments production or tobacco.
Supporting positive outcomes in areas such as health, workers’ pay, climate, or nature and/or minimising negative outcomes in these areas.
Encouraging responsible and faith-consistent behaviour by companies and other entities.
The 32-page document outines a range of practical and useful topics, including:
Is responsible investment the same as faith-consistent investment?
How to assess managers' approach to responsible investment
Possible questions to ask managers during the in-depth due diligence process of selecting a manager
Appointing a manager and monitoring a manager
Click below to download Working with your investment managers.