"Ag Biotech: Thanks, But No Thanks?" - full Deutsche Bank July 1999 report
available at http://www.biotech-info.net/Deutsche.html .
NATURAL LAW PARTY WESSEX
nlpwessex@bigfoot.com
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex
Norfolk Genetic Information Network (NGIN) website at:
<http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/> http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/
The following items relate to the scandal of Norfolk County Council's
(NCC's) pension fund investments in GM companies such as Novartis and
AstraZeneca (originally exposed by NGIN 9 months ago)
Eastern Daily Press (EDP) Thursday Dec 16
Council will use pension fund 'clout'
Norfolk's £1 billion pensions nest egg will help make sure companies toe
the line over GM research and the environment, it is claimed.
The county council adopted new guidelines on socially responsible
investment yesterday, pledging to use the investment clout of its
30,000-strong pension fund to make sure firms in which it invests behave
the way it wants.
The document stops short of saying whether the council's current
investments toe the line or what environmental criteria will apply to
companies.
But it says questionable investments should not be abandoned - because
the council would then lose the opportunity of influencing the company
concerned.
Celia Cameron, chairman of the investment committee said: "This is a far
more constructive approach than simply excluding certain company stocks
from the pension fund holdings.
"We know that companies do respond to shareholder pressure and we can
hold companies to account if we hold their stocks."
The committee's first responsibility was towards the 20,000 pension fund
members and 10,000 pensioners, and "ethical" investments were more
volatile than conventional ones.
"If we do not, it affects the council taxpayers, because "employers'
contributions increase and it can also cause anxiety to pensioners," she
said.
Campaigners claim the policy does not go far enough because the county
is still investing millions in GM food companies and tobacco company
BAT.
The authority was accused of double standards this year, when the EDP
revealed that about [pounds] 11 million of its pension fund was
invested in biotechnology companies Zeneca and Novartis.
County Hall, which was banning GM food from school menus at the time,
said the issue of responsible investment would be discussed fully later
in the year.
Yesterday Ingo Wagenknecht, of Norfolk Green Party, said: "On the one
hand we see they don't have any confidence in GM food and yet they still
invest in it.
"They also invest in British American Tobacco - how can an organisation
which looks after people have shares in tobacco, which is one of the
world's biggest killers."
Jonathan Matthews, of Norfolk Genetic Information Network, said: "It's
a recipe for inactivity and it will just perpetuate the problems.
"It's also short-sighted financially. They are going by the past
performance of some of these companies when their future is highly
uncertain.
"Investment managers are advising people to steer clear of
biotechnology."
The social engagement document says that the county's fund managers
should monitor the environmental performance of companies they invest in
and report back to the investment committee.
If concerns emerged, they should abstain or vote against company
resolutions at their annual meetings and air their fears in public.
• When the EDP asked the county council for a list of the companies its
pension fund invested in, we were told it would be too time-consuming to
provide it.
• COMMENT - Page 22
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Eastern Daily Press (EDP) Thursday Dec 16
• COMMENT - Page 22
Healthy income
Is ethical investment compatible with intelligent pension funding?
Norfolk County Council's relevant sub-committee, which yesterday agreed
a new "responsible engagement policy" on the subject, appears to be
hedging its bets.
Confident that the shareholder-power of its [pounds]1 billion,
30,000-member pension fund will ensure that companies maintain ethical
practices, it stops short of defining current practices and future
criteria.
While these issues are likely to be addressed at another meeting, the
council's leader may have given a pointer when stressing that the
authority's first responsibility is to its present and future
pensioners. This is indisputable, but Celia Cameron's claim that ethical
funds are less impressive performers than conventional stocks is
debatable.
Investment in companies of good practice is now a fast-moving and
arguably marginally less volatile market, a position far removed from
the time when the price of personal conviction was paid for in small
returns. The ultimate arbiters, of course, must be the staff and
pensioners.
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NCC pension fund scandal - how the story broke
The following story was widely reported in the local media and made the
front page of Professional Pensions magazine. Norfolk County Council's
current investments, it emerged, come to over £11million pounds in
Zeneca and Novartis. The shares in
Monsanto have been sold, presumably because of falling prices. Norfolk
County Council claim to have an ethical investment policy. In the light
of what ngin has disclosed about Norfolk's investments, the Green Party
have committed themselves to a
nationwide investigation of other council's GM investments.
ngin press release: for immediate release 1st March 1999
EXPOSED: NORFOLK’S MASSIVE INVESTMENT IN ‘FRANKENSTEIN FOOD’ INDUSTRY
leading Norfolk councillors privy to unethical investments
Chair of Education faces conflict of interest
• Norfolk County Council, which has lagged well behind many other
councils across the country in getting ‘Frankenstein foods’ off the
menu, is believed to have made a multi-million pound investment in the
giant corporations behind GM foods.
• Its pension fund, which covers not only its own employees but those of
Norfolk’s seven District Councils and 103 other bodies, is known to have
purchased more than 9 million pounds worth of shares in companies like
Monsanto, Novartis, and Zeneca as well as having further holdings in a
Biotechnology Venture Fund. [1]
• Jonathan Matthews of NGIN said, “With many in the scientific community
warning about environmental and health hazards arising from this
dangerous technology, and with massive public opposition to GM foods, it
seems scandalous that tax and rate payers money is being invested in
this way - all the more so after the Local Government Association has
just unanimously voted to get these foods out of all council catering.”
[2]
• NCC’s investments are overseen by an Investment Sub-committee. Most of
its members are leading Norfolk councillors. They include John Holmes,
Chair of the Education Committee. The Education Committee has drawn
repeated criticism over its lack of vigour in ensuring the removal of GM
ingredients from school meals despite longstanding bans by many other
County Councils.
• NCC’s biotech investments may be increasingly unattractive even in
straight financial terms given the escalating global concern over the
environmental and health impact of GM crops. Jonathan Matthews of NGIN
commented, “Even from a perspective of pure self-interest, Norfolk
should ditch these dubious investments now.”
• Apart from the environmental and health worries over GM foods, biotech
companies like Monsanto and Zeneca would fail established ethical
investment criteria relating to issues such as serious environmental
damage or unacceptable animal testing.[3]
• Research shows employees overwhelmingly do not want unethical
pensions[4], and according to EIRiS - the Ethical Investment Research
Service - “Local authorities are at the forefront of the drive to bring
ethics into the heart of their pension policies.”[5] Yet Norfolk County
Council, in addition to investing millions in the giant ‘Frankenstein
food’ corporations, also holds other highly dubious investments, most
notably shares in British American Tobacco which are among its top 20
holdings.[6]
NCC’s biotech company investments, if taken together, are also
understood to fall well within its “top 20” biggest holdings.
Notes
1. According to its annual report issued during 1998, at the 31st March
1997 NCC held:
Novartis: £2,655,405.62 of shares
Zeneca: £6,266,568.75 of shares
Monsanto: £291,184.53 of shares
Biotechnology Venture Fund: £174, 286.94 of shares
2. On February 24th 1999 the Local Government Association's public
protection committee took its unanimous decision (voting 60-0) to advise
English and Welsh authorities to ban GM products from their catering for
5 years, after receiving a report
detailing health concerns. The report, by the head of consumer
protection and environmental health, Ian Foulkes, said that scientists
did not "fully understand what happens when they fuse genes into the DNA
of an other organism", and urged the
Government to take "an even more precautionary approach" because of the
uncertainty of the long-term health impact. The recommendation affects
about 500 councils and almost 10 million children in 26,000 schools in
England and Wales as well as 1.5 million local government workers and
thousands of people receiving meals-on-wheels.
3. Monsanto is the company which developed and produced both the
chemical warfare agent “Agent Orange”, which was used with disastrous
consequences in Vietnam, and a substantial proportion of the world's
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a group of chemicals recognised as so
hazardous that their further production has been banned.
Zeneca: Matthew Harragin of the ethical research unit at stockbrokers
Rathbone Neilson Cobbold believes that there is "no excuse for an
ethical fund holding Zeneca” because “It fails on the animal testing
criteria which have been in place for years before GM food became an
issue. Any fund found to have Zeneca would have faced a stream of
investor complaints long before now." Quoted in The Guardian, “Mutants
not to our taste,” 20/2/99
4. 73% of employees say ‘yes’ to ethical pensions according to a
national poll conducted by NOP for EIRiS - the Ethical Investment
Research Service - in September 1997.
5. ‘Local authorities are leading the way’, The Ethical Investor,
November/December 1997, p.iii
“Pensions minister John Denham has proposed that retirement funds
should take ethical questions into consideration.” The Guardian,
“Mutants not to our taste,” 20/2/99
6. As at the 31st March 1997, NCC held shares totalling £6,405,414 in
BAT Industries.
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ADDENDUM ON CROWN ESTATES
Thanks to Mark Griffiths at nlpwessex for this addendum to yesterday's
mail on how landowners, including the Crown Estates, are discouraging GE
crop trials:
Technically speaking the Crown Estates are owned by the Sovereign,
currently Elizabeth II, although its surplus revenue is passed over to
the government. This effectively gives the government the principal
financial interest in how the Estate is managed. As well as other
property it owns almost 300,000 acres of agricultural land. See
http://www.crownestate.co.uk/info/about.shtml