SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL SCREENING

We apply a comprehensive set of social and environmental screens to all of our investments because we believe meeting certain baseline standards of corporate citizenship is both good for society and good for the bottom line.

We believe our screens help us identify companies that are led by more visionary management teams with more enlightened policies and practices ranging from the diversity of their boards, to the way they treat their employees, to their environmental performance. In the long run, we believe companies with fewer environmental liabilities, more diverse boards and workforces, generous employee benefits, and authentic commitments to their communities are better positioned to succeed and prosper.

In addition to applying strict exclusionary screens to certain industries such as tobacco and nuclear power, we also carefully assess the many ways in which a company impacts all its stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, communities and the natural environment, through careful research and observation techniques that have been developed over many years.

Our Screens

We seek to avoid investment in certain industries whose practices, we believe, are detrimental to society. The Golden Eagle Investments do not invest in companies or other issuers that manufacture tobacco or alcohol , or derive revenues from gambling operations, or the ownership or operation of nuclear power plants..

We seek to invest in companies with the following qualities:

Corporate Citizenship

We seek companies with innovative and generous charitable giving programs with a particular emphasis on programs promoting economic and social justice.

Diversity

We seek companies with women and minorities in management positions and on the board of directors as well as those that have a record of purchasing from or investing in women- and minority-owned businesses. We look for companies with strong employee benefit programs that address work/family concerns such as childcare, elder care, and flextime. We also recognize innovative hiring programs for the disabled as well as progressive policies toward gays and lesbians.

Employee Relations

We seek companies with a commitment to worker involvement/ownership through employee stock ownership, cash profit sharing and employee participation in management decision-making. We also look for companies with histories of fair labor negotiations and strong retirement benefits.

Environment

We seek companies that show respect for the natural environment. This may be demonstrated by the product or service the firm provides or exhibited through in-house recycling or pollution-prevention programs, gifts to conservation groups, or other ways of conducting day-to-day business.

Non-U.S. Operations

We seek companies which pay fair wages, support human rights and protect the environment where they operate in less developed countries. We also look for companies that enforce a code of conduct in choosing where and with whom they will do business.

Safe and Useful Products

We seek companies that provide high-quality products and are industry leaders in research and development.

Environmental : Our Approach

Global companies have an increasingly significant impact on our ever-shrinking planet. The health of our natural environment depends in large part on the decisions made by these companies. Modern corporations are therefore faced with a significant challenge—how to continue to meet consumer demand without exhausting what remains of our natural resources. We believe that a corporation's ability to meet these challenges is a fundamental indicator of quality corporate management.

At Golden Eagle Investments, we use comprehensive environmental screens to select our investments in order to encourage corporations to move down the difficult road towards sustainability. 

Our environmental screens also help us to identify the handful of companies that have begun to take modest steps toward environmentally sustainable business practices -- steps that we believe will place them in the forefront of their industries. They also help us to find those new, innovative technology companies that are surfacing, whose primary mission is to produce environmentally beneficial technologies.

 In order to judge a company's environmental record, our social researchers look at two broad categories: (i) the extent to which the company is involved in businesses or activities that help protect the environment (e.g. alternative energy, non-polluting technologies); and (ii) the extent to which the company is involved in activities that damage the environment (e.g. companies that produce ozone-depleting chemicals, that are the worst contributors to climate change, that have a history of being fined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, or that are heavily involved in the extraction of nonrenewable natural resources).

 Among the types of companies KLD seeks out in this category are companies involved in:

Alternative Technologies

We seek to invest in companies that have developed innovations in manufacturing processes that have environmental advantages over conventional processes.  

Alternative Energy

Currently, there are very few publicly traded companies involved exclusively in alternative.  

Recycling

We seeks to add to the Index companies whose primary material for the products it manufactures is recycled. These companies tend to be steel mini-mills, can recycling plants, or paper companies.