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February 07, 2006
KLD and ISS Offer Research Tools for Divesting from Sudanese Genocide and Terrorism
by Bill Baue
The KLD tool focuses narrowly on the Illinois law mandating divestment from companies doing
business with the Sudan; the ISS tool focuses beyond divestment and on other state sponsors of
terrorism.
SocialFunds.com --
Late last month, Illinois Senate Bill 23 entered into force as the "Act to End Atrocities
and Terrorism in the Sudan." The Act requires Illinois state pension funds to divest from
companies doing business with the Sudan, which has been identified by the US State Department as a perpetrator of genocide
and a state sponsor of
terrorism. Illinois is joined by five other states (Arizona, California, Louisiana, New
Jersey, and Oregon) using public pension investments to influence global human rights abuses in
Sudan and elsewhere. With five more states (New York, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, and
Vermont) headed in the same direction, the need for research on companies with ties to rogue
countries such as the Sudan has suddenly arisen.
 KLD Research & Analytics and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) have stepped up to fill this
need. In fact, KLD had already developed a tool for assessing company involvement in the Sudan
when it received a request for proposal (RFP) from the Associated Illinois Pension Systems,
according to Randy O'Neil, KLD's managing director of global sales.
"They wanted to
identify a single list of companies operating in the Sudan so that all their managers would be on
the same page instead of one manager using one list and another manager using another list and
having to figure out which list is more accurate," Mr. O'Neil told SocialFunds.com. "We went out
to Chicago to present to the pension boards, and less than a day later they came back to us with a
positive response."
The KLD Sudan Compliance Service draws on the
traditional socially responsible investing (SRI) practice of exclusionary screening based on
ethical criteria.
"A company is either in Sudan or it isn't: determining that is our
job," said Peter Kinder, founding president of KLD. "Of course, the root cause of the screen is
ethical: the Darfur and Southern Sudan genocides."
It also hearkens back to the 1980s and
'90s when SRI staked its moral claims and proved the efficacy of its strategies by spearheading the
campaign to divest from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa, which Nelson Mandela
credited with helping topple apartheid.
"The vast majority of clients are using this
product strictly for divestment purposes in response to the recent law passed in Illinois, but we
also have some clients that are using our tool to try to understand better what is the best
strategy for addressing the gross human rights violations going on in the Sudan," said Mr. O'Neil.
While the Illinois statute that the KLD tool is tailored to stipulates divestment, other
states' directives include divestment as one potential response but prioritize comprehensive
reporting on corporate involvement in the Sudan as well as other state sponsors of terrorism. ISS
designed its compliance tool
accordingly.
"It's not just a Sudan issue--two of these states, Arizona and Louisiana,
also cover the other countries with State Department sanctions for sponsoring terrorism," said
Nahla Ivy director of environmental and social analytics at ISS. "Our net is cast wide in terms of
trying to find out what the nature of any company ties are to these countries, which include Libya,
Syria, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea."
ISS, which initiated its "sanction/terrorism"
research stream in 2001, defines two levels of company involvement in these countries. The first
level, labeled an "equity tie," applies to more direct involvement such as on-the-ground facilities
and employees.
"If you're operating there, whether or not you're contracting directly
with the government, you're providing revenues to the government, which then enhances civil unrest
or even genocide," Ms. Ivy told SocialFunds.com.
The second level, called a "non-equity
tie," applies to less direct involvement, such as distributing products or services through a third
party or foreign subsidiary. And ISS research delves even deeper than this second level.
"If companies are distributing humanitarian products or services to a country, we separate that
out to call attention to the fact that they are benefiting people in the region," Ms. Ivy told
SocialFunds.com. "Illinois has an exclusion for companies doing only humanitarian activity,
but if they are also doing a revenue generating activity, then those companies would appear on
Illinois' forbidden entity list."
Oregon law goes a step further than Illinois law,
requiring institutional investors' asset managers to prevent negative financial impacts on the
portfolio when divesting.
"What I'm hearing from them, though, is that this is not very
difficult--they've been able to reposition their portfolios without a lot of adverse impact," Ms.
Ivy concluded.
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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