Investing

“It’s troubling that the largest banks in the United States are actually increasing their financing of oil, gas, and coal projects every year. As a shareholder, I am proud to have represented the Sierra Club Foundation at the Chase Bank shareholder meeting to push its CEO to stop funding fossil fuel projects.”

Jessica Sarowitz
Sierra Club Foundation Board Member

Over the past decade, the Sierra Club Foundation has steadily aligned our investments with our mission. Today, our investment portfolio is fossil-fuel free. We started by screening out planet-destroying companies and divesting from fossil fuels, then applied positive screens to concentrate investments with companies that met environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. Our ESG investing proved we could moderate risk while maximizing financial returns and providing the resources needed to meet our objectives. Then we took it a step further and began actively investing in climate solutions. This strategy of impact investing not only advances our charitable mission, it provides financial stability as we move toward a future in which the value of fossil fuel assets will likely take a rapid dive.

Our evolution continues. In 2018 we established a High Impact Investment Fund, which considers first how an investment advances our mission’s programmatic impact, then how it affects our bottom line. One of the fund’s first initiatives was a recoverable grant to provide early stage catalytic capital to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in developing a utility-scale wind farm.

We also continue to hold limited shares of stock in fossil fuel companies and banks in order to keep a seat at the table. Our shareholder advocacy played an important role over the past year as we worked with coalition partners to successfully pressure banks to divest from Arctic drilling and coal projects.

bringing clean energy and opportunity to hard-hit communities

As part of our high-impact investing strategy, in 2019, the Sierra Club Foundation invested $250,000 in Sunwealth, a Massachusetts-based company that finances clean, renewable energy with the goal of generating strong returns for investors and building wealth and opportunity in communities that typically do not have access to affordable, clean, renewable energy.

Our investment supports small-scale solar installations serving nonprofits, schools, houses-of-worship, commercial buildings, municipalities, multifamily/multiunit housing developments, and low- and moderate-income homeowners. Our investment in Sunwealth’s Solar Bond Fund will generate a return of five percent annual interest over the five-year term of the loan. As our work on climate change becomes more urgent, we continue to look for opportunities to maximize the impact of our investments, particularly in ways that benefit the highest energy-burdened communities in the US.