Care with the Blue: Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility

The series on the Blue Book now goes to the second committee report from Executive Council (EC), the report from the Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility.

Summary of the Report
This committee was created by EC in 2016 to research the social responsibility records of corporations whose stock is held by the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS—the formal, legal, name for TEC). They were further tasked both with developing shareholder resolutions on social justice and also researching resolutions proposed by other groups.

The committee worked with United/Continental and Marriott on training of staff to identify victims of human trafficking and also planned future dialogues with Delta Airlines and Swift Transportation. They withdrew a shareholder resolution to Chevron after that company published its own document on climate change and are monitoring progress with other companies whose businesses have an impact upon climate change. They engaged in dialogue with the CACI corporation on the question of diversity (specifically gender diversity) on their board. Through dialogue with Caterpillar Corporation, an employee was appointed to a new position on human rights, hopefully to oversee the participation of Caterpillar in actives associated with the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. They are also looking at our participation with Motorola, Facebook, and PayPal which also have connections to the Occupation. When the committee discovered we held stock in at least five banks which had helped finance the Dakota Access Pipeline, they sought to get the banks to exert pressure in getting the pipeline rerouted.

The committee proposed one resolution (see below) and also a budget for a halftime position to oversee this work.

Reaction to the Report 
Admittedly, I am not naturally a tremendous fan of the social screening of investments. Though it can have a powerful effect in some cases, I always worry that it privileges one political perspective (usually liberal) over another one and it gets farther into the weeds of definite right and wrong without respect to differing opinions than is appropriate for a churchwide body in the Anglican tradition.

That sad, most of this I found unobjectionable. At the same time, I do not not see the need for this work to be staffed or ramped up in any way. Though some corporations should definitely be avoided due to the nature of their work... I personally think that list is probably rather small. The reality is that almost every corporation has aspects of its work that at least some Christians would find antithetical to the gospel of Christ. So, some corporations get unfairly singled out while others are ignored.

To wit, I think there are other more effective ways of engaging in social justice work in the church, ways that are more attentive to the diversity of political views that do exist in TEC (despite the imagination of many).

Reaction to the Resolution 
A047 Ethical Investments (full resolution here)
I'm not opposed to this resolution, but I have my reservations about this sort of work in general, as noted above. That said, my guess is that I'm in the minority on this one and so it will probably be approved.

Note: You can click here for a list of all Blue Book Reports & Resolutions that have thus far been reviewed.