The six guidelines were drafted by representatives of as many as 20 investment organizations from 12 countries, including CalPERS Board President Rob Feckner and Interim Chief Investment Officer Anne Stausboll.
"The PRI apply to large, diversified institutional investors like ourselves that manage large funds in trust for employees," Feckner said. "We at CalPERS found that these principles are consistent with our own corporate governance efforts and in accounting for environmental and social factors to enhance our investment returns."
The principles propose possible actions related to investment analysis and decision-making; shareowners' policies and practices; reporting standards, and promotional, collaborative and reporting ventures by participating institutional investors.
Today, CalPERS Board Member Priya Mathur took part in the unveiling of the PRI at a New York Stock Exchange event attended by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, PRI signatories, and representatives of the UN Environmental Programme Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact, which oversaw the PRI drafting process.
The PRI echo such CalPERS goals as exercising global leadership to ensure the sustainability of the System's pension and health benefit programs and long-term risk adjusted returns. The principles also are in step with the pension fund's drive to make companies more accountable to shareowners, its requests that companies report environmentally threatening emissions, and ventures to expand and benefit from the resources of emerging markets and managers.
"While we have pursued PRI goals on our own, we are enthusiastic about this new high-level global framework for developing further policies and procedures," Stausboll said. "We also like the fact that the PRI are voluntary and suggest rather than demand actions, and that they provide a hub for investors to collaborate on issues and strategies. The PRI secretariat also has offered to help us in our efforts to promote and implement the principles."
The UN PRI can be found at http://www.unpri.org/principles/.
CalPERS is the nation's largest public pension fund with assets totaling more than $208 billion. The System provides retirement and health benefits to 1.4 million State and local public employees and their families.
