Once consensus has been reached about what it means for an institution to align its endowments with its mission, the next step is to formalize this understanding into a statement that will serve as a living guideline for those responsible for managing the endowment assets. The statement should set clear goals and objectives related to sustainable investing which are linked to the mission of your institution.
1. Review and Share General Guidance on Policy Development
If your current Investment Committee or Board have not previously developed or updated an Investment Policy Statement (IPS), you will want to start with general agreement on why it is important to include your ESG, sustainability, and/or mission-alignment perspective in the IPS. Here are two resources that can help you frame a policy development process:
- Considerations for ESG Policy Development Intentional Endowments Network, June 2017
- Applying Mission Focus to Your Investment Policy Statement Through ESG Investing Trillium Asset Management, June 2017
2. Draw Relevant Concepts and Language from Examples of Policy Statements that Incorporate ESG into the Investment Process
Some endowments embed their sustainable or ESG investing policy throughout their IPS while others create a separate statement. Once you are at the stage of drafting your IPS or sustainable investing statement, it may be helpful to review language that other peer institutions have already used. Here are resources that can support many different approaches to incorporating sustainable investing principles in an IPS:
- 🔐Sample Sustainable Investing Policies: You can see a comprehensive list of sample policies curated by IEN. [member only resource]
- Sample policy language on climate
- Sample policy language on investing with diverse asset managers
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