Investors Urge Companies to Distance Themselves from Chamber, NAM

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Investors are now jumping into the battle against the Chamber of Commerce’s climate change denial, asking the heads of major businesses to distance themselves from the Chamber and the National Association of Manufacturers, which has also opposed climate legislation.

On Wednesday, a group of of 43 institutional investors and related organizations submitted a statement to the CEOs of 14 companies. Walden Asset Management and Green Century Capital Management are leading the group of investors.

The notice asks companies “to address their disagreement with the chamber and NAM on climate change policy by withdrawing membership, publicly disclosing their disagreement, or asking the associations to refund the portion of their dues used to lobby on the issue.”

“While some companies, including [yours], have articulated a business rationale for a national policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, … membership in NAM/Chamber sends a starkly contradictory message,” they wrote.

The group is targeting Air Products & Chemicals, Alcoa, American Electric Power, Boeing Co., Caterpillar, Cummins, Deere & Co., DTE Energy, Entergy, Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., Lockheed Martin, Whirlpool, and Xerox Corp.

The investors, which collectively represent $16 billion in assets, include: Boston Common Asset Management, Catholic Health East, Catholic Healthcare West, Clean Yield Asset Management, Domini Social Investments, Green Century Capital Management, MMA Praxis Mutual Funds, Pax World Management Corp., The Russell Family Foundation, Trillium Asset Management and Walden Asset Management.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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