NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent $100 million gift to the public schools of Newark, N.J., timed as it was with the release of The Social Network, certainly put corporate philanthropy in the spotlight.
A decade or two ago, it was relatively easy for CEOs to marginalize "socially responsible" or "sustainable" investors as well-meaning minority stockholders whose interests were unrelated to, or even in conflict with, the company's financial health and profits. After all, building long-term shareholder value is a CEO's primary task, and most investors have traditionally been interested in rising share prices and healthy dividends. A company's stance on environmental issues or labor practices seemed far from a priority consideration for many companies. That's all changed. "Today, you ignore such investors at your peril," says Timothy Smith, senior vice president of the Environment, Social and Governance Group at Walden Asset Management in Boston. Sustainable or Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) now accounts for roughly one of every 10 dollars invested in the United States. These investors, who insist that "value" can't be quantified entirely on a financial bottom line, are as likely to judge you as much on your environmental record or how well your suppliers in developing nations treat their workers as they are on market share expansion. But that doesn't mean they are oblivious to your financial performance or to the health of their own investments. "In the past, there was a perception that they didn't have a central interest in the bottom line. Clearly that's not true today," Smith says. As past chairman of the Social Investment Forum in Washington, D.C., Smith is one of the leaders of a movement that major investment companies in the United States now increasingly take very seriously. Socially responsible investors are as varied as the causes they represent. One, for religious reasons, avoids companies producing alcoholic beverages or movies deemed inappropriate. Another seeks out companies that have positive environmental footprints. Yet another investor makes decisions taking into account a company's labor practices at home or overseas. 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