Compassionate capitalism

>> Local investment group promises to put your money where your morals are

by CRAIG SEGAL

As globalization helps the rich get richer, the rich are finding themselves in a peculiar pickle: whatever are they to do with those fat stacks of loot? After intensive investigation, the Mirror has found a solution. Her name is Sherazad Adib, and she's part of an elite team of investment consultants called the Groupe Investissement. Made up of four youngsters looking eerily like regular business people, the group aims to get you to invest your money in select companies that they deem socially or morally responsible.

Demers Conseil, a well-known investment company, partially funds the group and provides them with luxurious office space on René-Lévesque. They have done around five contracts so far at around $15,000 a contract. "Investors have a responsibility to put pressure on business to change working conditions and environmental practices," declares the 26-year-old Adib, who lived in France and Iran before moving to Canada eight years ago.

"Businesses have problems and realities they have to face and you can't ignore them," Adib adds. "But we must always combine that with social and environmental regulations."

Globetrotting Eric Steedman, also part of Groupe Investissement, has seen sweatshops firsthand. He says the same problems exist from Guatemala to Korea: no overtime pay, miscalculation of wage rates, and child and slave labour. Steedman adds that there are sweatshops in Canada, and he worries about the increasing use of prison labour. "The whole move to privatize prison--where your business is modelled on having more and more people in prison--I think that's pretty shameful."

The group is part of a growing trend of rabble-rousers who believe there's more to changing business practices than waving a sign around. Investors are holding votes to tell their companies how to behave. And in today's image-conscious times, they claim, companies can't help but listen.

North Americans have begun taking that responsibility seriously. Shareholders at Sears Canada, Hudson's Bay and Wal-Mart recently voted on proposals calling on the companies to adopt International Labour Organization principles on sweatshop labour. Investors in American oil giants like ExxonMobil are pushing their companies to invest in renewable energy production, like hydro dams and solar panels.

Social studies

The movement exists beyond the tight ties and hard desks of the office place. Canadian students have been entrenched in a war against university investment practices for years.

A typical gripe involves university "donations." When BioChem Pharma donated $100,000 to Concordia in 1997, students accused the university of entering a partnership deal that would see the company using the school and its resources for free research. As these types of university deals become more common, students find themselves fighting their schools internally--through referendums and student elections.

"It's a takeover of the education function of the university," says David Bernans of the Concordia Student Union, and author of the soon-to-be-published Con U Inc.: Privatization, Marketization and Globalization at Concordia University (and beyond). "Students are taught to become cogs in a corporate machine, where they're not being trained as critical citizens but as commodities to sell themselves to the highest corporate bidders.

"For average people to turn a blind eye to it is class suicide. You're turning over the reins of power to a wealthy few." But Bernans stresses that responsible investment has its limits. "The best thing about investment activism is it brings to light the worst excesses of corporate power, and that's a really valuable service," he says. "But the idea that shareholder democracy is going to happen is a sham. Because it's not one person, one vote, it's one dollar one vote."

Re-education

The Groupe Investissement's Steedman was once a scuzzy militant himself. The former punk protested nukes and environmental unfriendliness until he learned he could change the world and earn big bucks at the same time. So he pulled up his pantaloons and got himself a master's in business administration. "I never really saw myself as a business guy," says Steedman. "I did my MBA at McGill to find out more about the business world because you can't really change things if you don't know how they work.

"People should wake up and realize that they have numerous ways to retake control of the political agenda."

He's not afraid of money though. "Our goal is if we hit $100,000 in revenue by September, I think that would be okay. One of the reasons we've been putting in a lot of work for relatively little pay is because we think there's going to be a big payoff a couple of years down the road.

"I believe this is a way to make the world more responsible. But I'd like to see this develop as a profitable business."

The Groupe is co-organizing the upcoming Canadian Social Investment Conference, June 3-5. For information check out their site at www.investissementresponsable.com, or call 879-5977