No Small Change: Pension Funds and Corporate Engagement

by Tessa Hebb

Overview

In No Small Change, Tessa Hebb examines the ability of pension funds, now the largest single driver of financial markets around the world, to use their ownership position to change corporate practices for the sake of the bottom line and, perhaps, change the world for the better in the process.

Pension funds are not the new moral conscience of the twenty-first century, but they are significant owners of today's corporations. Because pension funds have to pay out benefits over many decades, they are increasingly concerned about the long-term value of the stocks they hold in their portfolios. Risks posed by climate change can have a huge impact on future returns. To lower the risks associated with an uncertain future, pension funds are engaging corporations and using their influence to raise the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards of companies.

At its best, Hebb finds, corporate engagement offers a long-term view of value that both promotes higher ESG standards and adds share value, thus providing long-term benefits to future pension beneficiaries. At its worst it may divert the attention of pension fund officials from their primary responsibility of ensuring the retirement benefits of their members. This book weighs the influence of corporate engagement on firms in an effort to see how the potential from this newly emerging force is being realized.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801446962
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2008
Pages:	168
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Tessa Hebb is Director of the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation at Carleton University, Senior Research Associate at the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, and Senior Research Associate in the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. She is also Chair of Hebb, Knight and Associates. She is coeditor of Working Capital: The Power of Labor's Pensions, also from Cornell.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     ix
Understanding Pension Fund Corporate Engagement     1
Intersecting Interests     21
The Economic Inefficiency of Secrecy     37
Why Do They Care?     57
Global Standards and Emerging Markets     69
The Way Forward     93
Appendix     103
Abbreviations and Acronyms     119
Glossary of Terms     121
Notes     129
References     137
Index     145
About the Author     153

What People are Saying About This

Teresa Ghilarducci

No Small Change addresses an implied audience of powerful investors who want to know how to invest in a moral way that sustains the environment and promotes the human condition. Here, finally, is the answer to the question, 'Can you do well by doing good?'.

Steve Lydenberg

Tessa Hebb's seminal insights in No Small Change are invaluable. Anyone wishing to understand how pension funds can take coordinated action to influence corporations and stabilize markets should read this book.

Editorial Reviews

"Tessa Hebb's seminal insights in No Small Change are invaluable. Anyone wishing to understand how pension funds can take coordinated action to influence corporations and stabilize markets should read this book."—Steve Lydenberg, Domini Social Investments

"No Small Change addresses an implied audience of powerful investors who want to know how to invest in a moral way that sustains the environment and promotes the human condition. Here, finally, is the answer to the question, 'Can you do well by doing good?'"—Teresa Ghilarducci, The New School

From the Publisher