Faith-Based Investing & Shareholder Engagement
Office of Faith-Based Investing and Shareholder Engagement
The office, along with the Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) Committee, is part of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s efforts to align financial investments with the values and mission of the church. It focuses on socially responsible investing by considering environmental, social, and governance factors when making investment decisions. These factors inform shareholder advocacy, where the PC(USA) engages with companies to promote ethical business practices that reflect the church's commitments to justice, sustainability, and human dignity.
MRTI works to influence corporate behavior through dialogues, shareholder resolutions, and, when necessary, recommends divestment from companies that fail to meet the church’s ethical standards.
Featured Episodes
Faith-based Shareholder Engagement
Timothy Smith, Senior Policy Advisor, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Corporate Impact on Communities
Emma Lockridge, Writer and Environmental Justice Activist
Mission Responsibility Through Investment
The Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) was created in recognition of the church’s unique opportunity to advance its mission faithfully and creatively through financial resources. MRTI implements the General Assembly’s policies on socially responsible investing (also called faith-based investing) by engaging corporations. MRTI does this in collaboration with two other PC(USA) agencies: the Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation. MRTI also has elected members from the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns, Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, Racial Equity Advocacy Committee, and three at-large representatives.
The Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation hold an estimated $10 billion to $12 billion of assets. MRTI, as the engagement arm of the church’s investing agencies, uses these investments as a tool of mission and social witness by engaging the companies in which the denomination’s investing agencies hold stock to get their practices and policies to align with the church’s values. The General Assembly’s investment policy identifies specific concerns that MRTI is to promote: pursuit of peace; racial, social, and economic justice; environmental responsibility and securing women’s rights. MRTI also prioritizes General Assembly directives and concerns and requests from ecumenical partners, mid councils, and congregations.
MRTI engages companies through correspondence, dialogue, voting shareholder proxies and recommending similar action to others, and filing shareholder resolutions. If a company does not show clear signs of movement or change, MRTI may take additional actions, including a possible divestment recommendation.
Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment
MRTI enjoys the full participation and support of the Board of Pensions and the Presbyterian Foundation. Assets under their management, including those of the Foundation-sponsored family of New Covenant mutual funds, are managed according to General Assembly guidelines, in as much as is legally permitted. In addition to the Board of Pensions and Foundation trustees, MRTI has elected members from the Advocacy Committee for Women and Gender Justice, Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, Racial Equity Advocacy Committee, and three at-large representatives. You can view the Committee Procedures here.
You can view MRTI’s current workplan, including a list of companies MRTI engages, here: 2023-2024 MRTI Workplan.
Who Serves on MRTI?
Rev. Kerri Allen, Chair, Advocacy Committee on Women and Gender Justice
Rev. Dr. Lindley DeGarmo, Vice-Chair, Board of Pensions
Dr. Mark Douglas, Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy
Adebisi (Bisi) Shofu, Racial Equity Advocacy Committee
Rev. Dr. Fairfax F. Fair, Board of Pensions
Rev. Jihyun Oh, New Covenant Trust Company
Sam Muse, Presbyterian Foundation
Vacant, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Rev. Brenton Thompson, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty, Member-At-Large
Rev. Marci Glass, Member-At-Large
Rev. Dr. Gregory Simpson, Member-At-large
Nominations Process
If interested in joining MRTI as an at-large member when openings occur, you may apply here. (**TEMPORARY LINK)
General Assembly Resources
“We recognize that climate change is undeniable and is one of the most pressing moral and theological problems of our time. Human action and corporate degradation of creation threatens the survival of the planet upon which we live and depend for our sustenance,” from the rationale of MRTI’s report to the 225th General Assembly (available here).
Following General Assembly policy and responding to the 225th General Assembly directive to the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI), MRTI engaged the companies identified for focused engagement and is not recommending any companies be added to the General Assembly Divestment/Proscription for this assembly. MRTI is recommending adding Ameren and EOG Resources to MRTI’s list for focused engagement and to report back to the 227th General Assembly (2026) with possible divestment recommendations for the companies that are not moving toward compliance with criteria established by previous General Assemblies.
221st GA (2014): First fossil fuel divestment overture introduced, issue referred to MRTI. Directed MRTI to report back in 2016 after “action and discernment in accordance with its long-standing and detailed procedures to engage with individual corporations to advance their actions in support of important social policy issues.”
2015-2016: MRTI conducts research and policy analysis; gaps identified in “Power to Change” GA Environmental Policy (2008), no guidance on owning fossil fuel stocks.
222nd GA (2016): Need to establish criteria for owning fossil fuel stocks. GA directed MRTI to report back in 2018: “with recommendations, including possible selective divestment if significant changes in governance, strategy, implementation, transparency and disclosure, and public policy are not instituted by the corporations during the engagements of MRTI and ecumenical partners.”
2016-2017: MRTI develops and adopts tool for measuring criteria.
223rd GA (2018): affirmed MRTI’s measurement criteria and named nine companies for focused engagement and measurement, directed MRTI to return in 2020 with divestment recommendations. Nine companies named: Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Duke Energy, ExxonMobil, Ford, General Motors, Marathon Petroleum, Philips 66, Valero Energy.
224th GA (2020): MRTI recommended adding companies falling in the red category, ExxonMobil, Valero Energy, and Marathon Petroleum, to GA Divestment/ Proscription list.
225th GA (2022): MRTI recommends adding companies falling in the red and orange categories, Chevron, Exxon, Marathon, Phillips 66, Valero, to the GA Divestment/ Proscription list, and add additional companies to the focused engagement list.
226th GA (2024): MRTI recommends adding Ameren and EOG Resources to its list for focused engagement.
Tools of Faith-Based Investing
Faith-based investing uses the three pillars of socially responsible investing — screening, shareholder advocacy, and community investing — to express faithful stewardship of investment resources.
Screening means selecting investments that meet criteria based on our faith values. Some churches and individuals employ “positive” screens that seek out companies for investment based on their approach to environmental responsibility, fair-hiring practices and efforts to support international human rights standards. Others use “negative” screens that may include alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and the production of war materials, among others. Research enables concerned investors to make informed choices to invest in companies that come closest to their values.
Screening in the PC(USA) begins with policies of the General Assembly and the investing agencies of the church to avoid investments in companies involved in tobacco, alcohol, and gambling, along with for-profit prisons, and some companies related to weapons production, antipersonnel and mines, handguns, and assault weapons. In addition, at times a company involved in serious human rights and environmental violations may also be screened. The investment managers retained by the investing agencies for their expertise in specific areas then select stocks from the universe of non-screened companies according to their mandated responsibility.
Corporate engagement combines our voices as investors to leverage a call for socially responsible corporate policies and practices. Shareholders, as the owners of the corporation, have a variety of options — and the responsibility — to influence the behavior of a company in which they hold stock.
Through dialogue and meetings with company management, shareholders try to directly encourage more responsible levels of corporate citizenship. If initial attempts at dialogue or communication with a company fail, institutions or individuals can file a shareholder proposal, to be voted on at that company’s annual shareholder meeting. A shareholder proposal is a recommendation or request that a company and/or its board of directors take a particular action relevant to company policy.
All investors then have the opportunity to speak out on key issues through the votes they cast on shareholder resolutions appearing on their proxy ballots in advance of the company annual meeting. Proxies not voted by shareholders are almost always automatically credited to the company’s recommendation, which is usually a vote against the shareholder proposal.
MRTI is involved in shareholder advocacy to encourage companies to protect the most vulnerable, care for Creation, and promote peace. Recent dialogues have led to an agreement by Wells Fargo to end payday lending, staff training programs at Hilton and Wyndham Hotels to recognize the trafficking of children for sexual exploitation, and the establishment of a greenhouse gas emission reduction goal by Conoco-Phillips. Shareholder resolutions have been filed in the field of human rights, corporate accountability, health care, environmental responsibility, and more.
MRTI Implementation of 222nd General Assembly Directive
To help MRTI implement its directive from the 222nd General Assembly as well as evaluate the progress it makes with companies engaged in conversations around environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, the committee approved this document in June 2017. The 223rd General Assembly affirmed these Guideline Metrics in June 2018. The committee approved updates to the Guideline Metrics Framework 2.0 in June 2021, available here: MRTI Guideline Metrics (June 2021). The committee approved additional updates to the Guideline Metrics Framework 3.0 in June 2023, available here: MRTI Guideline Metrics Framework 3.0.
Updated Guideline Metrics Company Scoring Evaluation, approved by MRTI in December 2023, can be found here: December 2023 APPROVED Aggregated MRTI Metrics.
Community investing provides financial capital for economic development in communities that are often overlooked or excluded by traditional financial structures. Community banks, credit unions, and loan funds, along with other community-based businesses, build opportunity by helping to provide market-based jobs, housing and local services. Designating a portion of investment capital for community investing supports the building of sustainable economies in communities where it is needed most.
In a similar vein, the assembly called for Positive Investment in Israel-Palestine, as part of an effort to create conditions for peace in the region. The Presbyterian Foundation has implemented this effort through a series of investments there including construction loans, microfinance, and direct investment.
New Covenant Trust Company | https://newcovenanttrust.com/
Board of Pensions | www.pensions.org
Ceres | www.ceres.org
Climate Action 100+ | www.climateaction100.org
The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment | www.ussif.org
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility | www.iccr.org
Investor Environmental Health Network | www.iehn.org
New Covenant Funds | www.newcovenantfunds.com
Presbyterian Foundation | www.presbyterianfoundation.org
MRTI Resources For Active Ownership of Invested Funds
Contact Us
Katie Carter
Director of Faith-Based Investing and Shareholder Engagement
katie.carter@pcusa.org
888-728-7228, ext. 5813
Simon Doong
Associate for Corporate, Community and Church Engagement
simon.doong@pcusa.org