What is Catholic SRI?
Catholic Socially Responsible Investing is the application of Catholic teaching to the investment function. It is an integral part of Stewardship that aligns investors' treasure with their faith. Two primary components to Catholic SRI are:
Avoid Doing Harm
Actively Work for Change
At Augustine, we believe that our process allows Catholic investors to fully implement Catholic SRI within their portfolios.
Part I: Avoid Doing Harm
Refuse to invest in companies whose products and policies run counter to Catholic moral teaching and divest from such companies.
Augustine Screen
Protecting Human Life
Abortion
Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Cloning
Promoting Human Dignity
Pornography
Contraceptives
Enhancing the Common Good
Controversial Weapons
Firearms Manufacturers
Harmful Habitual Behaviors
Augustine Process
Thorough
Global coverage spanning 75 countries and more than 10,000 companies ensures full screen application.
Consistent
Screening criteria are exclusively sourced from USCCB's 2021 Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines.
Vigilant
Screening is continuously monitored to assure no holdings of disallowed securities.
Part II: Actively Work for Change
Influence corporate cultures and shape corporate policies through a corporate engagement process that includes dialogue and informed proxy voting.
Protect Human Rights
Use selected shareholder resolutions to encourage companies to provide sufficient wages and working conditions that enable their employees and families to meet basic human needs.
Encourage Corporate Responsibility
Encourage companies to report on social, environmental, as well as financial performance. Actively promote resolutions to adopt corporate social responsibility guidelines.
Provide Access to Healthcare
Encourage companies' initiatives through dialogue and voting to make life sustaining drugs available to low-income communities and countries at affordable prices, consistent with Catholic values.
Strengthen Fair Labor Standards
Encourage companies through dialogue and voting to provide sufficient wages, decent working conditions, and other social benefits that enable employees and families to meet basic human needs.
Protect the Environment
Undertake initiatives for energy conservation and the development of alternate renewable and clean energy resources. Promote the offering of incentives to corporations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Promote Ethical Banking
Encourage the financial institutions where it deposits its resources to undertake programs and implement policies to promote ethical as it relates to lending activities, project finance, and consumer banking.
End Discrimination
Support resolutions directed towards equal opportunities for minorities and women, as well as actively promoting the inclusion of minorities and women in policy-making roles and on corporate boards.
Reduce Armaments
Actively advocate and support shareholder actions to limit weapons production, to limit foreign sales of weapons and to convert corporate capacity to non-military uses in order to discourage an arms race.
Curb Pornography
Promote and actively support shareholder initiatives, including in some cases, shareholder resolutions, to promote responsible and family-oriented program content development by media companies.
