ESG

Arguments in support of shareholder primacy and against stakeholder capitalism are out of sync with the voice of the American public, institutional investors, shareholders, and corporations themselves. 

In light of Labor Day this past Monday, we revisit a chart from early June to evaluate how companies’ treatment of their workers continues to affect financial performance throughout 2020.

For Labor Day, we revisit our Chart of the Week from earlier this summer to reevaluate how companies who fully disclose their EEO-1 reports have performed throughout the trailing three months. 

This week, we explore the risk profile of more just companies in comparison to less just ones, and show that JUST companies have less volatility.

This week, we dive into the history of our JUST Rankings and evaluate how America’s Most JUST Companies have performed on a cumulative basis since inception, finding that the top four quintiles as the top quintile has outperformed the bottom quintile by 29.9% cumulatively.

Providing hazard pay is stakeholder capitalism in action

As our economy sees increasing uncertainty after the market recovery in Q2, this week’s analysis dives into our 2020 Rankings to evaluate median maximum drawdowns by quintile.

If one thing has become clear this year, it’s that corporate stakeholder performance claims – on COVID-19, racial equity, and other “S” issues – must be backed by real action.

This week we look at severe communities controversies within the companies we cover, and see a significant outperformance for those who don’t have at least one severe controversy.

This week, we double down on employee compensation and dive into our “Pays a Fair Wage” metric to showcase how companies’ wages differ across various job titles when compared to industry peers.

The DOL has stated that ESG funds are “vehicles for furthering social goals or policy objectives that are not in the financial interest of the plan.” We completely disagree – here’s why.

On July 27, JUST hosted a discussion with representatives from two of America’s largest pension funds and Bloomberg’s chief diversity reporter on why disclosing workforce demographic data is a crucial first step toward addressing racial inequity in corporate America. 

Last month, the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new investment duties rule that would essentially keep ESG funds out of retirement accounts. Everything I’ve seen throughout my career shows that such a move would hurt investors.

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As we prepare our annual rankings, we are considering a new way that companies might reduce their environmental impact – the reduction of air travel.

What does good governance look like today?

While most money managers hunt for bargains in the market upheaval, Jonas Kron is searching for good guys.

Diego López of Global SWF, in collaboration with JUST Capital’s research team, decided to use a new approach for examining the best practices of sovereign wealth funds – the JUST methodology. 

Back in the 70s, Marty Lipton was a lone voice crying out in the wilderness. Now he’s joined by many others: Klaus Schwab, Just Capital, and the Business Roundtable. They’re all urging a shift from shareholder primacy to a new model of stakeholder capitalism.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund put $800 million in sustainable fixed-income strategies this year, including sustainable private credit and green bonds, a rare big bet on debt in the equity-dominated market for responsible investing.

These notable podcasts all offer regular episodes that inform, inspire, and energize business leaders in their daily quest to do right by their stakeholders.

Today, State Street CEO Cyrus Taraporevala announced that they would be using their proxy voting power to ensure companies were identifying material ESG issues.

EPFR, Informa Financial Intelligence, released a staggering chart this week, showing that as wider equity markets have lost investment, ESG funds have only seen their investment levels increase.

This month, Argus Research published a white paper featuring their incorporation of JUST Capital’s company ranking and scoring methodology into their Sustainable Impact Investing Trust