Events Policy
National Association of State Treasurers (NAST) Conference-September 16, 2007
At the request of Randall Edwards, Oregon State Treasurer and outgoing president of NAST, CSI developed program materials for the main plenary session at NAST’s annual policy meeting. The session focused on the threats and opportunities that managers of state pension funds face from climate change and recommended best practices for State Treasurers in light of global carbon regulation, and emerging opportunities for state investment initiatives. CSI brought representatives of Ceres, CAP, and Alliance Bernstein to the discussion.
Along with urging Treasure adoption of the Ceres principles on responsible investment, the event also introduced a lead policy recommendation CSI makes in all its work with State Treasurers, namely to evaluate their practices and asset holding in light of what might be called Green Strategic Investment (GSI) — practices and investment aimed at reducing the fact and impact of global the threat of global on both the opportunity and liability side, taking full account of the impact that global warming on portfolios, which acting to mitigate that threat. Such GSI evaluation was pioneered by California Treasurer Phil Angelides, in cooperation with the CalPERS & CalSTERS (California Public Employees Retirement System and California State Teachers Employment Retirement System). Their “Green Wave” GSI program applied a sustainability screen to a portion of CalPERS/STERS holdings, invested in cost-effective retrofits of the funds’ own real estate holding, established a special investment fund for promising clean energy startups, and called for greater disclosure of corporations’ potential carbon-related liabilities with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Admitting variation in the circumstance and opportunities available to different state pension funds, CSI believes that such a thorough evaluation of current portfolios in light of GSI.
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