wfn.org | ICCR Keeps Watch

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3335 notes).

Note 3327 by UMNS on Dec. 12, 1996 at 10:27 Eastern (4328 characters).

SEARCH: Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, ICCR,
investing, shareholder, 
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Linda Bloom                         615(10-21-71B){3327}
          New York (212)870-3803                      Dec. 5, 1996

EDITORS NOTE: This is a sidebar to UMNS stories #612 {3324} and
613 {3325}.

^From resolutions to hearings,
ICCR keeps watch on companies

     NEW YORK (UMNS) -- Some significant steps in the history of
the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR). The
following information is from its 1995-96 annual report:

     1971 -- The Episcopal Church files the first religious
investor-sponsored shareholder resolution, calling on General
Motors to withdraw from South Africa.

     1972 -- Religious investors create controversy with release
of a report, "Church Investments, Technological Warfare and the
Military Industrial Complex," examining the "role of church as
investor and locus of moral leadership in society."

     1973 -- Roman Catholics join with Protestants in ICCR.

     1974 -- The Commission on Religion in Appalachia and ICCR
hold public hearings on strip mining in Appalachia.

     1975 -- Religious investors file resolutions challenging
marketing of infant formula in the Third World.

     1976 -- Church groups file three resolutions with J.P.
Stevens on the company's labor relations and equal employment
opportunity practices.

     1977 -- Religious investors sponsor resolutions pressing two
Chicago banks to address "redlining," the practice of not making
mortgage or home improvement loans in older or deteriorating
neighborhoods.

     1978 -- The United Methodist Church adopts investment
guidelines with screening criteria on apartheid, environment,
rights of ethnic minorities and women, alcohol and other drugs,
gambling, weapons, and the historic prohibition against
investments in tobacco.

     1979 -- Religious investors sponsor six resolutions asking
nuclear weapons producers to report on such production.

     1980 -- Religious shareholders join with local residents to
push Occidental Petroleum on cleanup and compensation at Love
Canal.

     1981 -- A resolution questioning Phillip Morris about its
tobacco sales in the Third World is filed by religious
shareholders.

     1982 -- ICCR and the National Council of Churches host the
National Church Conference on Alternative Investment in Community
Development.

     1984 -- Nestle signs an agreement with the International
Nestle Boycott Committee promising to implement the WHO Code of
Marketing for Breastmilk Substitutes in the Third World.

     1986 -- General Motors and IBM announce their withdrawal from
South Africa, although ties are not completely cut.

     1987 -- Citibank sells its South African subsidiary and
closes the only U.S.-owned bank in South Africa.

     1988 -- ICCR publishes its first "Guide to Church Alternative
Investment Funds."

     1989 -- The United Methodist Board of Pension and Health
Benefits commits $25 million to investment in low and moderate
incoming housing.

     1990 -- African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela is
released from prison; economic and military sanctions continue
against South Africa until apartheid is dismantled.

     1991 -- ICCR joins a coalition that launches a campaign to
press U.S. corporations to adopt socially responsible business
practices in the maquiladora industry along the U.S.-Mexico
border.

     1992 -- Sun Company endorses the CERES Principles on the
Environment, the first major company to do so.

     1993 -- Religious and other investors sponsor four
shareholder resolutions questioning companies on their business in
Burma.

     1994 -- Religious investors file resolutions urging K-Mart
and Wal-Mart, the largest domestic U.S. retailers of firearms, to
halt sales.

     1995 -- Kimberly-Clark is successfully pressured by religious
investors and religiously-affiliated health care corporations to
sell its tobacco-related businesses.

     1996 -- President Clinton invites the ICCR and others to form
an Apparel Industry Partnership on sweatshops in the U.S. and
abroad.

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