A win for Investors Against Genocide: Vanguard commits to human rights disclosure

Investors Against Genocide (IAG) announced that Vanguard will now screen its funds’ constituents for human rights practices – including companies’ involvement with the government of Sudan. Vanguard says that its new policy, which applies to all 157 of its funds, is “substantially identical” to IAG’s shareholder proxy proposals.

“While the SRI mutual fund industry has had policies like this in place for decades, I know of few mainstream firms which have such a clear and explicit human rights policy,” Walden Asset Management’s Tim Smith told the Social Investment Forum.