In Maclean’s‚ the magazine partners with Jantzi Research to bring you a Corporate Responsibility Report‚ including a guide to "Investing with a conscience." The key to building a portfolio that fits your individual values is research. Here are just a few websites that can provide information relevant to socially responsible investors.
- Regulatory disclosure documents for all Canadian listed companies are available through SEDAR. For ethical investors in particular‚ annual reports and management discussion and analysis (MD&A) documents hold a wealth of information. SEDAR is also where mutual funds‚ including ethical funds‚ disclose their holdings.
- EDGAR is the American equivalent to SEDAR‚ and also offers information on Canadian dual–listed companies. Unlike SEDAR‚ the contents of all filings are searchable.
- Some companies also publish corporate social responsibility reports‚ detailing their environmental‚ social and governance (ESG) performance. The Global Reporting Initiative is an emerging standard for such reports.
- Canada’s Social Investment Organization tracks the performance of responsible investment funds and offers information on member fund companies.
- Toronto–based Jantzi Research provides ESG analysis of thousands of companies‚ mostly for mutual funds and institutional investors.
- The Jantzi Social Index is made up of 60 Canadian companies that meet Jantzi’s best of sector analysis. Barclay’s offers an exchange traded fund based on the index‚ and the companies are available through its site.
- Each year Vancouver–based Ethical Funds publishes a focus list of companies and issues it is targeting‚ as well as all the shareholder resolutions it has filed on issues ranging from human rights to the environment.
- Inhance Investment Management also publishes how and why it voted proxies at annual meetings‚ in accordance with its social investment proxy guidelines.
- Dow Jones offers several sustainability indexes covering North American and Europe‚ and the firm discloses the constituent companies.
- The Calvert Group investment firm also offers the Calvert Social Index‚ with short reports on some of them‚ though there are few Canadian companies.
- Human Rights Watch offers some information on specific companies it deems have poor records on certain issues‚ such as operating in Burma.
- The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre tracks news and reports on more than 3‚000 companies worldwide and is searchable by company.
- The Sudan Divestment Task Force targets companies and mutual funds with ties to Sudan.
- CorpWatch tracks news on a variety of issues and industries‚ such as defense‚ tobacco‚ resources and financial services.
Maclean’s – Jason Kirby | Nov 29‚ 2007 | 4:15 pm EST
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