- February 9, 2024 Social Justice
When Sister Barbara Jennings spoke as a panelist at the 50th Anniversary gathering of Seventh Generation Interfaith Coalition for Responsible Investment, she referenced her 16 years of experience speaking for the Sisters of St. Joseph to corporation shareholders. During those decades, she has taken on the executives of corporations peddling tobacco to children, toxic coal ash dumping, limits on assault rifle sales, and human and labor rights.
Sister Barbara considers herself an agent for structural change. In this role, she says, “We are not serving in food pantries but advocating for change in the stockholder meetings.” She cites her work with the former St. Louis-based Midwest Coalition for Responsible Investment (MCRI), which she led from 2007 to 2019. With MCRI, she served as lead on shareholder resolutions like those that persuaded Monsanto to lower its recommended usage of crop fertilizers, and Peabody Coal to implement use of dust covers on its coal trains.
Socially responsible investing is a way that religious congregations and other faith community groups raise their values with their voices. It is a way to work for positive change. In recent years, its name has changed to Environment, Social and Governance, or ESG investing. ESG investing refers to a set of standards for a company’s behavior used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments.
The new designation reflects an understanding long embraced in Catholic circles: that the economy exists within society and affects all citizens, and all of creation — both positively and negatively. In fact, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops updated its socially responsible investment guidelines in 2021, providing principles for Catholic investing. These guidelines are based on the defense and promotion of life: avoiding harm, actively working for change, and promoting the common good.
Twice last year, Seventh Generation Interfaith, a contingent of 40 faith-based institutions to which the St. Louis province belongs, has been named by conservative politicians investigating ESG-guided investing. The accusation includes using shareholder resolutions to press companies to align with the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change and reduce the worldwide use of fossil fuels. Scientists have repeatedly called for nations and corporations to address climate change to avoid more catastrophic impacts from extreme weather events.
Sister Barbara says managing investments is about more than achieving the greatest financial yield to support sisters in their retirement. “It’s providing the moral component of money,” she says, “embracing the gospel values and Catholic social teaching” while providing for the community’s fiscal needs.
Not surprising, the recent push back against the growing tide of ESG investing and principles around socially responsible investing have traced funding to the fossil fuel industry, as well as right wing and libertarian groups, including those tied to Catholic conservative activists.
Spokespersons, like Sister Barbara, remain undaunted. “We’re raising important issues that we think the boards and management leaders of companies need to be paying attention to. It’s what we’ve been doing for decades and will continue to do.”
She also notes the need for new members in groups like Seventh Generation Interfaith. “We need more lay members, more small faith-based investment companies who are willing to hear about this way of investing,” she says, willing to invest for the common good. Sister Barbara adds we need our universities and colleges to look at Catholic social teaching and impact investing in their business schools, in their environmental science and political science programs. “Young people are interested and working in this movement,” she says.
“Humankind has had to change throughout history,” she says. “Times have changed. We have to continue to change, too.”
Written by Sister Mary Flick
Published in the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet's Connections magazine, Winter 2024
