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For various present and past students who have been involved in working towards socially responsible investing (SRI) at Green Mountain College, March 31 marked a historical day: the newly formed SRI Committee met for the first time. The committee consists of two student representatives and two faculty members who are developing a strategic implementation plan that will be recommended to the Investment Committee in late April.
The implementation plan will be established so that the college has a process to incrementally become stricter with investments. Employing positive and negative screens makes it possible for GMC to decide which funds to invest in and which categories should be excluded from investments.The implementation of SRI will take place as a controlled and stable process so that returns from responsible investments can be assessed and possible trade-offs (if any) can be considered. As a first step with this new type of investing, $300,000 (about 18% of our $3 million endowment) will be responsibly invested initially, if the Investment Committee approves the recommendation. The ultimate goal of the SRI Committee is to have GMC’s environmental mission statement and investment funds working together to create a more conscious and responsible institution.
For more information about socially responsible investing, including the political implications, other institutions’ investments, and GMC’s progress with SRI, please attend the presentation during Earth Week!
