Pensions and Capital Stewardship Project

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Occasional Papers, No. 5

Benchmarking Corporate Policies on Labor and Human Rights in Global Supply Chains

By Aaron Bernstein and Christopher Greenwald

Near majorities of large corporations have labor and human rights (LHR) policies covering their global supply chains, although far fewer have established follow-up monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. LHR supply-chain policies are also close to the norm among European companies, with the United States and Asia lagging behind. These findings are contained in the first study to benchmark LHR policies among the 2,500 companies found on the major stock market indices. The study was done by Pensions Project Senior Fellow Aaron Bernstein and Christopher Greenwald, Director of Data Content at the Swiss firm ASSET4, using ASSET4 data.

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Occasional Papers, No. 4

Quantifying Labor and Human Rights Portfolio Risk

By Aaron Bernstein

This paper explores how pension funds and other investors can obtain data on the long- term sustainability risks posed by the labor and human rights (LHR) activities of global corporations, with a specific focus on supply chains. It should be read as a companion piece to Bernstein's “Incorporating Labor and Human Rights Risk into Investment Decisions" (Occasional Paper, No. 2)

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Occasional Papers, No. 3

Pension Fund Investment in Infrastructure: A Resource Paper

By Larry W. Beeferman

Pension funds are increasingly giving thought to investment in infrastructure in an effort to achieve substantial and stable returns that are a match for funds' long-term liabilities. This paper describes risk, reward, and other financial considerations that bear on that thinking. The paper also discusses concerns about the job and labor implications of such investments and pension fund and other response to those concerns.

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Occasional Papers, No. 2

Incorporating Labor and Human Rights Risk Into Investment Decisions

By Aaron Bernstein

Mainstream investors for the first time are beginning to assess labor and human rights factors as a way of increasing returns and lowering risk as part of a broader movement in the investment world to include corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) behavior into portfolio and lending decisions. However, the paper also describes why investment analysis of labor and human rights poses some of the most difficult challenges in the emerging ESG field.

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Occasional Papers, No. 1

Can VEBAs alleviate retiree health care problems?

By Aaron Bernstein

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Vol. 1, No. 4 | July 2008
•Experiments in Public Sector Pension Fund Design
•Accounting for Pension Fund Risk and Reward
• A Code of Conduct for Pension Trustees
• CEO Pay as a Proxy for Good Corporate Governance
• Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Investment Returns Compared
• Labor, Human Rights and Investment Risk
[Capital Matters | July 2008]

Vol. 1, No. 3 | April 2008

•Understanding the Turmoil in Financial Markets
• ...What to Do
• 401(k)s Fall Short of Funding an Adequate Returement
• Can VEBAs Alleviate Retiree Health Care Woes
• SEffective Labor Representation on Pension Boards

[Capital Matters | April 2008]

Vol. 1, No. 2 | January 2008

• Point/Counterpoint: Infrastructure Investments
• What trustees can learn from San Diego
• Putting labor rights into investment decisions
• Trustee Perspective
• Sharing retirement-funding risk: The Dutch Solution

[Capital Matters | January 2008]

Vol. 1, No. 1 | October 2007

What can be done to improve America's retirement system? Is private equity really all it's cracked up to be? Find out in the premier edition of Capital Matters , the Pension and Capital Stewardship Project's newsletter.

[Capital Matters | October 2007]