연금기금과 사회책임투자(SRI)의 법리

SRI has come a long way since the 1980s. This Article takes a look at the new and increasingly popular phenomenon of socially responsible investing(SRI). A topic that has garnered a lot of attention recently, the Article focuses on the intersection of SRI and trust law related to pension funds. For a long time, SRI movement was regarded by mainstream financial institutions as a subversive, fringe sector. That derogatory attitude is starting to change as some financiers recognize that the social or environmental behaviour of companies they support can have salient financial repercussions. A polluting company, for instance, may attract adverse publicity or even liability in a manner that affects its solvency. Consequently, a new style of SRI is emerging that increasingly jettisons any pretensions to ethical criteria, focusing instead on the business case for investing responsibly. SRI actors increasingly frame their choices on a business case, on the assumption that SRI will make investors prosperous rather than merely virtuous. While business case SRI has led to some growth in the SRI market, because many social and environmental issues cannot be financially quantified using techniques familiar to financial institutions, the sector's growth faces structural limits. SRI indicts long-standing investment practices for impairing ecological health and social justice. It also presents an opportunity to reform those practices to respect social and environmental values so essential to the long-term health of the economy. Despite some recent growth of the SRI market, most financial institutions have not heeded this message. Rather, they largely perpetuate business as usual by evaluating ecological necessities from the perspective of financial advantage, while discreetly rejecting deeper ethical questions about the investment process. The business case model of SRI sanguinely transforms the tensions between environmental protection and profitable investment into a harmonious arrangement. That environmental care and financial prosperity can be compatible is not an objectionable proposition, in principle. If financial markets continue to ignore imperatives for reform, more radical solutions may have to be implemented to secure our future. Somebody warns of a hypothetical “carbon dictatorship” where an “Earth Commission for Thermostatic Control” controls the economy to safeguard a looming climate crisis. SRI, if followed seriously, could help avert such bitter alternatives. Financial markets have become the single most important sector of the global economy, and reducing their ecological footprint through credible legal standards for SRI may yield a better dividend than any other environmental law strategy currently available.