Gates Foundation Revokes Pledge to Review Portfolio

NewsCloud writes "After the LA Times reported that the Gates Foundation often invests in companies hurting the very communities Bill and Melinda want to help, the Seattle Times reported the foundation planned 'a systematic review of its investments to determine whether it should pull its money out of companies that are doing harm to society'. Shortly after that interview, the Gates Foundation took down their public statement on this and replaced it with a significantly altered version which seems to say that investing responsibly would just be too complex for them and that they need to focus on their core mission: 'There are dozens of factors that could be considered, almost all of which are outside the foundation's areas of expertise. The issues involved are quite complex...Which social and political issues should be on the list? ... Many of the companies mentioned in the Los Angeles Times articles, such as Ford, Kraft, Fannie Mae, Nestle, and General Electric, do a lot of work that some people like, as well as work that some people do not like. Some activities might even be viewed positively by some people and negatively by others.'"

Re:SRI

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, companies discovered something interesting after the anti-pollution laws were passed in the sixties and seventies (I'm not sure when they actually noticed this. When companies reduced pollution, they made greater profit. It turns out that the best way to reduce pollution is to turn "pollution" (i.e. waste) into product. Oftentimes a product that the company didn't make before. The point is pollution is waste, the less you waste the more money you make. I suspect a similar principle applies to behavirs that are truly evil, the less you do them the more profitable you will be (everything else being equal).