Investing Responsibly
Businesses have a responsibility to their employees and their community, and small business owners tend to take that responsibility to heart. When companies become large public entities, that sense of responsibility of ownership dissipates as the ownership is dispersed through institutions and investors looking strictly for financial returns. At Parnassus, purchasing a stock means becoming an owner in the business. For us, socially responsible investing is about reconnecting that responsibility of owning a business to public companies, keeping management responsible to their owners for both financial and ethical performance. When you buy one of the Parnassus Funds, we try to buy businesses that you would be proud to call yourself an owner of.
No company has a perfect social profile, and we try to make judgments based on the information we have and our research team's analysis of a company's social profile.
- Socially Responsible Investing. The screening process to select our universe of companies. Our Social Investment Principles talk about our stance on specific issues.
- Parnassus Community Development. Our investments into community development financing.
- Shareholder Advocacy. Working with management to factor in social values in business decisions to effect positive change. We also use our proxy votes on corporate resolutions to impact companies' policies. Read our Case Studies for examples of our shareholder advocacy impact.