At the request of the Richardson administration and New Mexico State Treasurer James Lewis, CSI held a Strategy Academy on Green Strategic Investing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Along with the State Treasurer and Gov. Richardson’s Chief of Staff, New Mexico brought a wide range of concerned groups to the Academy. CSI was represented by its director, Joel Rogers, and several outside experts, including longtime California public servant and financial adviser Winston Hickock (who helped develop Green Wave), and representatives of UBS, the investment house. After having presented, Rogers moderated a panel discussion of these experts, and several hours of discussion with those New Mexico had brought to the event. The background and result of this Academy provides a good example of the power of CSI policy interventions.

 

Governor Richardson’s Office had approached CSI, in part based on the suggestions at NAST in September, to help accelerate the implementation of Green Strategic Investment principles in their state. While both the State Investment Council (SIC) and Education Retirement Board (ERB) — the first a non-cabinet level agency which reports directly to the Governor, the second the manager of state teachers defined-benefit pension plan — were broadly supportive of the GSI idea, their principals wanted to know much about the mechanics of implementation. And a third pension fund whose support was consider critical to state GSI success — the Public Employees Retirement Fund (PERA), a $13 billion defined benefit pension for state employees, municipal employees and county employees — was opposed to the idea. The Strategy Academy effectively solved both problems. By its end, the SIC and ERB had their most pressing implementation questions answered and PERA had moved from opposition to support. All three Boards agreed to work with the Governor’s Office in 2008 on implementing a GSI strategy, which is now underway.