Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR)

	Religious campaigners in Massachusets

ICCR is an interfaith organisation formed by 275 religious bodies including religious pension funds, health care institutions, coalitions of religious investors, coordinating bodies of churches, religious foundations and publishing companies.

The organisation holds corporations accountable for their social and environmental policies and practices. ICCR also helps its members develop their own ethical investment policies.

ICCR points to the increasing power of global corporations and how religious investors can use their economic resources to check that power. Shareholders, and particularly large institutional investors, can influence the market either by selling shares in companies or demanding that management listens to and respects their views.

ICCR uses the proxy vote. Most shareholders do not attend annual meetings where decisions are taken, so ICCR publishes proxy statements and posts proxy cards to all shareholders. When a shareholder returns a proxy card to a company, the company votes those shares in accordance with the shareholder’s wishes.

ICCR actions include:
• dialogue with management and letter writing
• shareholder resolutions, voting proxies, attendance a
• shareholder meetings
• soliciting votes of other investors
• divestment of securities as a final resort
• research and publication of material
• communicating to media
• testimony before Congress, the UN, State and City legislative bodies
• boycotts, prayer vigils, and civil disobedience as a last resort

One example of a success that ICCR contributed to was the General Motors decision to leave the Global Climate Coalition. This coalition was an association of vehicle and energy companies which denied the existence of human-induced climate change and lobbied against legislation in this area.