ANNUAL REPORT 2020
Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment A PROGRAM OF THE INTERCOMMUNITY PEACE & JUSTICE CENTER
INVESTING FOR
2020 2020
Thank God our time is now when wrong comes up to face us everywhere
W
hen we met with representatives of Merck pharmaceutical company on March 2 in New York a few minutes of our agenda were devoted to COVID-19 and its impact on the Company’s operations in China. Merck shared that they were looking closely at their antivirals that might have the potential to address the coronavirus. Our week of spring Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) meetings, dining and public transportation in New York came to a close on March 6 when our scheduled in-person dialogue with Bristol Myers Squibb at their offices hastily became a phone call at the request of the Company. Back home in Washington State, on March 24 with over 2000 confirmed cases and 100 deaths, the Governor issued a “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order which included “a ban on all gatherings, and closure of many businesses.” Overnight our efforts to press for greater corporate accountability became virtual and the pace accelerated as we were faced with issues impacting essential workers and the health and safety of people in the US and around the world. As it became evident that we were facing a global pandemic, NWCRI members joined over 335 institutional investors in calling on companies to prioritize workers’ paid leave and health and safety, and to maintain employment and supplier relationships. In early April NWCRI and ICCR members sent letters to fourteen pharmaceutical companies urging them to collaborate in developing diagnostics, treatments and vaccines to threat COVID-19. Spring saw rapidly rising numbers of confirmed cases and deaths from COVID-19 and the economic impacts of stayat-home orders devastating individuals and communities.
Daily we experienced the breakdown of our economic, health and education systems. Then tragically, on May 25 George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American man, was killed in Minneapolis during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill. Now we were confronted by the effects of 400 years of systemic racism in our country. A poem that became my daily prayer and inspired hope in me is, A Sleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry.
Dark and cold we may be, but this Is no winter now. The frozen misery Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move… Thank God our time is now when wrong Comes up to face us everywhere, Never to leave us till we take The longest stride of soul we ever took… In 2021 ICCR will mark 50 years of making the moral case for corporate action on issues of social and environmental justice. We were founded to address apartheid in South Africa. Today our mission is closer to home. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic with its racial and economic disparities, the responsible investor community is called to accompany the Black Lives Matter Movement in its quest for racial and economic justice. As faith investors we commit to examine and address systemic racism within ourselves, our institutions and the companies we engage. A Sleep of Prisoners concludes:
It takes So many thousand years to wake, But will you wake for pity’s sake!