Ethical Investment Advisory Group

EIAG engages supermarkets

The Church’s ethical investment watchdog is to examine the relationship between supermarkets and farmers. The investigation by the Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) follows a General Synod fringe meeting at which rural delegates raised the plight of farmers who felt their livelihoods were being squeezed by the supermarkets’ drive to deliver food ever more cheaply.

Neville White, secretary to the EIAG, said that the group had researched the “effects and economic indicators” of supermarket policies and is in the process of “arranging meetings with groups of farmers and land owners, in the North of England, at which they can put to us their concerns and some concrete examples of how they are suffering. The group will then take cases to the supermarkets in order to progress a dialogue with them.” The issue over what supermarkets demand of farmers will, he says, form part of the “ongoing engagement and conversation” they are having with retailers.

“We work on the basis that engagement and progressive dialogue is the way to influence and affect change,” says Mr White. “We take the view that we can be an encouraging and supporting investor and these are legitimate concerns we are bringing to the party. We tend to find these days, because companies are taking social responsibility so seriously, that you do get a hearing. And in some cases you can effect change in corporate Britain. There is a powerful message here of what the church can add to that sort of debate.”

The EIAG was set up in 1994 but as calls for trade justice ring around the church and the political power of purse and wallet is more widely understood, interest in EIAG has also heightened. It was set up, explains Neville White, as “a professional body to provide coherent and expert advice to the Church of England’s primary investment bodies – the Church Commissioners, Central Board of Finance (CBF) funds and the Church of England Pensions Board.” All three bodies had adopted ethical policies before 1994, he says, but now all three were getting ‘joined up’ advice. The EIAG has no legal influence over investments, he explains, it simply makes recommendations.

More information at: www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ethical