What's Happening

October 4, 2016, Adrian, Michigan – Numerous aspects of the issue of climate change and its effects on Earth have been discussed and analyzed in recent years. A presentation, sponsored by the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Portfolio Advisory Board (PAB), focused on a unique but vital slant: how finance can be used as a tool in the fight against climate change.

Geeta Aiyer, CFA, founder and president of Boston Common Asset Management, spoke on “The Climate Finance Landscape – Mitigating the Impact of Climate Change” in the auditorium of Weber Center, before an audience of PAB members, Sisters, Associates, and Co-workers. Geeta has worked closely with the Congregation for about 20 years as an investment manager.

She began by setting her talk in context, noting the urgency of climate change, which can bring about “disruption of climate cycles” and severe weather, as well as “food scarcity, the extinction of species, and the displacement of populations.” 

For many years, faith-based organizations have tried to persuade people to address climate change and to change from using fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar. Financial motivation also plays a role, Geeta said. “I firmly believe there is no sustainability without finance,” she said. “Hence, your role as the Portfolio Advisory Board remains central.”

During her talk, Geeta focused on how finance tools can be used as part of a strategy to persuade corporations such as energy companies to lessen the effects of climate change on our planet. 

Geeta gave a mixed review of the effectiveness of one popular tool: divestment, selling off your stocks and having nothing to do with a fossil-fuel company, for example. Divestment is a “values statement that says you don’t want to participate in it.” However, she added, the stocks could then go to other owners who don’t care what effects the fossil-fuel companies are having on the environment. In addition, other companies besides fossil fuel corporations put carbon into the air through their operations.

Geeta pointed out that activist shareholders — those who want to make a difference to the environment or social justice through their investments — have a range of tools to persuade corporations to take the environment into account, from dialoguing with the companies to engaging in shareholder resolutions. The PAB, through its Corporate Responsibility arm, engages in those actions to bring about greater social justice and enhance the common good. 

Geeta noted the powers of persuasion that shareholders have with the corporations that they invest in because the shareholders would want to make decisions that benefit the corporation as well as the world. As shareholders, “we have a very different voice,” she said. “We want [the corporations] to do well. …We’ll sit with them and talk with them in a voice that can be heard.” 

Dialogues between activist shareholders and the companies in which they invest can take many forms, Geeta said. She emphasized the importance of working with fossil-fuel companies to begin to produce renewable energy, with other companies to reduce their use of carbon and to be more efficient, and with insurance companies and banks, who enable continual construction that can increase the use of fossil fuels.

Geeta expressed her own optimism that fossil fuel companies and other corporations will eventually act to make the environment more sustainable. “When we know people are watching, we change how we do things,” she said. For example, if fossil fuel companies realize that the demand for carbon-based energy has been reduced, they might supply more energy through renewable sources. Companies in every sector could become aware of opportunities to make a difference through more efficient use of energy or through technology that helps consumers to measure their own use of energy. 

To hear more about this complex issue, watch the video of Geeta’s entire talk below.

September 27, 2016, Washington, DC – Sister Donna Markham, OP, PhD, President and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, was active in the public sphere in mid-September. She was honored on September 15 as one of the Non Profit Times’ (NPT) 2016 Power and Influence Top 50 non-profit executives and, the next week, spoke as part of a panel  on migrants and refugees at a side event at the United Nations. 

“Any recognition I receive is rightfully a tribute to the Adrian Dominican Congregation that has formed me, loved me and supported me throughout my religious life,” Sister Donna said in response to these events. 

The NPT Top 50 Gala, held at the National Press Club, gave the honorees and their guests the opportunity to meet and interact with one another. They also listened to a keynote address by David Wilkinson, Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. Mr. Wilkinson spoke about the involvement of the White House with non-profit organizations. Honorees were then called forward one at a time to receive their special award from NPT.

In naming Sister Donna to the list of top 50 nonprofit executives – from a field of roughly 300 executives – the NPT noted her work to “break the image of Catholic Charities as solely a major emergency relief organization.” Her philosophy of “participative government” is bringing “unlikely partners to the table and changing how this $4.5 billion behemoth operates and collaborates.”

Sister Donna, former Prioress of the Adrian Dominican Sisters, is the first woman to head Catholic Charities USA, a national network of 164 agencies who serve people in need. Services include disaster relief, food banks and pantries, emergency shelter and a variety of housing options, educational and training opportunities for adults and children, and advocacy on behalf of those who are in need.

Since taking on the presidency of CCUSA in June 2015, Sister Donna has worked with the White House and both houses of Congress, imparting Catholic social values; represented Catholic Charities during Pope Francis’ visit to the United States in October 2015; and helped to coordinate organization’s vision for 2017-2022. 

“The ministry of Catholic Charities has been engaged in a process of identifying our strategic priorities for the next five years and articulating our vision for the future,” she wrote in a preface to CCUSA’s 2017-2022 vision.   

On September 19, Sister Donna described one of CCUSA’s 2017-2022 priorities – immigration and refugee services – while she spoke on a panel at a side event during the United Nations Summit on Refugees and Migrants. Sister Donna spoke of the growing numbers of migrants and refugees who take great personal risks to flee the dangers and hardship they face in their homelands and to find security and freedom in other countries. 

Through the years, Catholic Charities agencies have settled refugees in the United States; provided legal services to migrants seeking immigration status; and helped refugees and migrants to find “housing, school, employment and social support in their new communities,” Sister Donna said. She noted that Catholic Charities is part of the global Caritas Internationalis movement, which works “around the world to assist refugees and migrants.”  

Read Sister Donna’s entire address here.   

Watch the video of the panel discussion.