Location: Upper Sayles

Time: 8:30 am

Present Chris Clark, Joe Concannon, Danette DeMann, Ellen Farnham, Daniel Groll, Fadi Hakim, Sara Hooker, Fred Rogers, Kristen Vellinger

Absent Mihaela Czobor-Lupp, Forrest McKnight, Iris Wang

Secretary: Claire Milsted

Revised Document

Daniel passed out his revised version of the document from last week. The resolutions listed are all from companies that are on our most recent list of holdings (from 12/31/2011).

There are a few typos that we will fix.

Our final document will have the full text of each resolution in the appendix; only the “resolved” section will be in the main part of the document.

We will submit our final work on Tuesday. Daniel will then edit the document and format it using LaTex.

Specific Resolutions

The resolution from Pepsi regarding political contributions through trade associations was withdrawn.

The resolution from Amazon regarding sales tax represents a new issue area for CRIC.  There is a definite “fiduciary responsibility” argument to be made, because Amazon’s behavior has drawn the ire of the government and legislative action in this area is likely. There are also social responsibility arguments to be made. Joe will look into this.

The offshore banking resolution from Goldman Sachs resolution on offshore is also new territory. However, the rationale for wanting the resolution is similar to both the Amazon resolution and earlier “say on pay” resolutions.

There is a new resolution at Goldman Sachs asking for a report on the reputational risks of high executive pay. This may be perceived as redundant because Goldman Sachs recently implemented “say on pay.” It also only asks for a report.

The “Separate Chair and CEO” resolution at Exxon Mobil will probably be similar to the Goldman Sachs “Separate Chair and CEO” resolution from last year. However, we do not have the text so we will have to wait and see.

The BPA resolution is probably a good one to present. BPA was recently banned in China. There is also probably legislative risk in the US.

Sara will look into Hydraulic Fracturing.

The Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Policy resolution at ExxonMobil seems like a very clear fit for Carleton values. We should definitely pursue this resolution.

The Policy

Daniel has been working on how to present the proposed policy to the trustees. The trustees will probably want to hear arguments about how this policy will make us more efficient and effective by allowing Carleton to vote on more resolutions. We should mention companies where the company ended up enacting the policy we supported. Fred said that we should also make our explanation of the policy as specific as possible, so that the trustees have the clearest possible picture of what it will allow us to do. We also need to establish that the policy does not mean any additional work for the investment office. Fred also suggested a re-ordering of our explanation of the policy.