The Rose Foundation is dedicated to the principle that environmental protection, community vitality and economic health are inextricably linked. Rose conducts research and advocacy projects related to corporate accountability, the prudence of considering environmental factors in investment portfolio management, and the integration of labor and environmental interests. In addition to these in-house projects, Rose also administers a number of community grants funds supporting environmental and consumer protection issues.

With the support of the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, the Rose Foundation has launched a broad-based campaign calling for full disclosure of financially material environmental performance factors by major corporations. The campaign includes a citizen rulemaking petition to the U. S. Securities Exchange Commission contending that—despite the recent Sarbanes/Oxley accounting reforms—publicly traded companies still use a variety of accounting maneuvers to keep expensive environmental liabilities off their balance sheets and away from investor scrutiny. The petition is based on evidence compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showing that as many as 75% of U.S. corporations have failed to properly inform shareholders about expensive environmental liabilities in recent years. This effort to increase corporate environmental disclosure and step up SEC enforcement has been endorsed to date by some of the nation’s leading institutional shareholders, including more than 30 charitable foundations, several mutual funds and labor organizations, and California State Treasurer, Phil Angelides.

The overall goal of the Rose Foundation’s Environmental Fiduciary Project is to encourage better corporate environmental performance by activating companies’ core constituencies—their shareholders—to demand better environmental value from their investments. Aligning the weight of the capital markets behind environmental sustainability would cause a profound shift in society’s prevailing environment vs. the economy paradigm, and enhance efforts at all levels of global society striving for economic sustainability and the preservation of our planet’s wild and scenic places.

For more information including a copy of the Rose Foundation’s report "The Environmental Fiduciary: The Case for Incorporating Environmental Factors into Investment Management Policies" (2002) visit: www.rosefdn.org

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