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We love to engage
on the issues of the day.
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We love it.
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We comment on the news,
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we post our views on social media,
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we march, we protest ...
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But who among us is working on solutions,
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big solutions to big issues,
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like gun violence,
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mistreatment of workers,
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flood, famine, drought?
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Who is on it?
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Boom!
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These guys.
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(Laughter)
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What? You were hoping for Peter Parker?
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The Avengers?
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You don't expect this beacon of diversity,
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these good-looking, nicely dressed dudes
just oozing charisma to solve the issues?
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Well good, because they're actually
not going to solve the issues.
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But before you dismiss them,
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let me say, they're not going
to solve the issues,
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but they will show us how.
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So who are they?
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They're activist investors:
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Carl Icahn, Dan Loeb,
Paul Singer, Barry Rosenstein.
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These are the modern-day
OGs of Wall Street.
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(Laughter)
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These are scary dudes.
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I don't mean Green Goblin scary.
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I mean real scary.
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The fear they strike in the hearts
of a company's CEO and board
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when they enter its stock
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is the same fear you feel
when you hear a bear outside your tent,
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and it's dark,
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and you're sitting there
with a mouthful of Doritos --
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(Laughter)
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that just moments ago,
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you had snuck out of the tent
to pull down from the bear hang,
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because you had the munchies.
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That fear.
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And in that moment, you are praying,
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"Oh Lord, please let this bear
be passing through."
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That bear is not passing through!
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That bear made a detour for you.
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Bears like Doritos!
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(Laughter)
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Activists like money.
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Some activists also like Doritos,
but they definitely want money.
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And the way they make money,
the way they create value,
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is by getting management of corporations
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to make changes.
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Now, some will argue
that the changes they create,
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the value they create,
is too short-term in nature.
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And others will say the tactics
they use are egregious.
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I agree.
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Long, drawn-out lawsuits,
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public smear campaigns --
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there is no need for that.
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But I must say, there's
a small handful of activists,
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very small,
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that go to great lengths
to be constructive and collaborative.
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And overall, we have to give credit
where credit is due.
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As a group, they have managed
to catalyze large-scale change
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in large corporations,
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and that's no small feat.
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Now, imagine a world
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where all investors were working
with management to make change,
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not just to make more money,
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but to improve
the environment and society.
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Imagine what a greener
and better world this would be.
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Now, why? Why would an investor bother?
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And at first, blush I'm with you:
Why would an investor care?
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Because if doing well on ESG issues --
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environmental, social
and governance issues --
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was just an act of good
corporate citizenship,
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then I agree, investors would not care.
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But the good news,
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and perhaps the saving grace
for our collective futures,
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is that it's so much more than
an act of good corporate citizenship.
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It's good business.
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There's now enough evidence
that shows a clear correlation
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between ESG performance
and financial performance.
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Companies that do good
for the environment and society
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also do well financially.
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And some of the best
companies are catching on.
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Like Adidas:
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Adidas is cleaning up the ocean
and making money in the process.
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Adidas teamed up with an organization
called Parley for the Oceans.
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Parley goes out and collects
plastic waste from the ocean.
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Adidas uses the plastic waste
to make shoes.
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Shoes made with plastic from the ocean:
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good for the environment
and good for business.
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Because if you know that rapidly growing
consumer segment known as hipsters --
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and I know you know hipsters --
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then you know that a hipster faced with
the choice between a no-name shoe
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and an Adidas made with
plastic from the ocean
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will pick the Adidas every day
of the week and twice on Sunday,
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and then walk around like it's no big deal
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but look for every opportunity
to talk about them.
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Like, in an Uber Pool.
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(Laughter)
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"Hey, I noticed you looking at my feet."
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"What? Dude, no, I'm just making slides.
I'm a consultant. I make slides.
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I'm making PowerPoint slides,
I'm not looking --"
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"No, it's fine.
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I get why you'd be looking.
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The plastic on my shoe
must be bothering you.
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Well, let me talk about it
for the rest of this ride.
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You see, the plastic on my shoe
is from the ocean,
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on my feet, not in your fish,
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being walked on, not being munched on.
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Happy feet. Happy fish. Happy ocean.
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Doing my part. I got eco-shoes.
I got eco-shoes.
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You need some eco-shoes?"
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And so on, just cornering him.
We've all been there.
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"Hey, pass me your cell phone.
I'll give you a discount code.
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Let me give you a discount code."
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We've all been --
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Folks, I have jumped out
of moving Uber Pools.
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(Laughter)
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Just, moving, highway, I'm out. I'm out.
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But we've got to forgive the hipsters,
we need to love the hipsters.
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We need hipsters,
and we need companies like Adidas,
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and what we need most is for investors
to convince other companies
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to behave like Adidas.
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And herein lies the challenge.
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There's a growing group of investors,
call them conscious investors.
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Conscious investors care about ESG issues.
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And they talk a lot about
engaging management on ESG issues.
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But they don't actually get
management to make changes
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that will improve
the environment and society.
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And this is where conscious investors
can take a page from the playbook
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of the activist investors,
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because the activist investors have no
issues getting management to make changes.
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They have no issues turning up the heat.
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Take Paul Singer.
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He's an old-school Wall Street OG,
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now in his 70s, loves Doritos,
loves making money.
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Argentina owed Paul 600 million dollars
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and would not pay.
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Big mistake.
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You can't take money from an OG
and not pay it back.
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Paul went to war with Argentina.
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I am not inventing.
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This is big. This was huge.
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This was bigger than Tyson vs Holyfield,
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Ali vs Foreman.
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This was man vs country.
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Paul Singer started going around the world
trying to seize up Argentinian assets.
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At one point, he tried to seize
an Argentinian navy vessel
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off the coast of Ghana.
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He tried to take over a 350-foot ship
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while big navy officers
with big guns were on the ship.
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He got the police in Ghana
to show up with a crane
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and threaten to board the ship,
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and it wasn't until
the navy officers drew their weapons
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that they called off the operation.
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That's what I call turning up the heat.
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Now you may say
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Paul lost the battle.
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And I'll say, Paul won the war,
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because Paul didn't get paid one time,
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he got paid 20 times
his original investment.
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Then you have Barry Rosenstein.
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His fund, Jana Partners,
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started stealth-mode buying up
stock in Whole Foods,
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at a time when Whole Foods was struggling.
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They got to eight percent, came out,
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and pushed Whole Foods
to sell itself to Amazon,
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and not because Barry wanted
same-day delivery of his organic Doritos.
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(Laughter)
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He wanted to make some money.
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Now, the CEO of Whole Foods,
John Mackey, and the board
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did not want to sell themselves to Amazon,
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because that would be
the prime example of selling out.
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But in the end, they caved.
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Why? Because Barry turned up the heat,
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and he made 300 million
dollars in the process.
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And he did not leave
a very nice impression on John.
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You're not going to see
John and Barry just hugging it out
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at the Whole Foods café.
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Let's take a very different example now:
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the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund,
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a $10 billion conscious investor.
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They recently came out hard
against private prisons in the US,
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and good for them.
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As a new parent, I tell you,
I am troubled by devastating images
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of young children being ripped
out of the arms of their parents
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at the US border
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and being placed in private
detention facilities that did too little
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to help the kids maintain
contact with their parents.
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So what did the Chicago teachers do?
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Did they get management to make changes?
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Did they turn up the heat?
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Did they look management
in the eye and say,
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"This is no way to run a business.
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There's a different way
to do things. Let me show you"?
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No. They just sold their stock.
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Selling did nothing.
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It's not like management
woke up the next day
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and had an epiphany and said,
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"Gosh, the teachers sold their stock.
We'd better be nice to the kids."
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No. That didn't happen.
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And despite a decade
of several high-profile divestitures
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in private prison stock in the US,
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the stock has continued to climb.
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The stock over that same period
has outperformed the market.
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And the biggest issue is,
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we went from a set of conscious
investors owning the stock
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to it potentially being owned by investors
who don't care about these issues
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and don't care what you think
about these issues.
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And this is my issue
with conscious investors.
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Their MO is to divest
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or divert money into ESG-focused funds.
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You can't divest your way
to a greener world.
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You can divest your way
to a greener portfolio,
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not to a greener world.
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So what's it going to take?
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What's it going to take
to flip the script,
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to get conscious investors to go
from divesting to engaging,
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to go from talking about engaging
to actually working with management
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to make changes that will improve
their ESG performance?
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Because there's a lot suggesting
they should and they could.
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They should, given the clear correlation
between ESG performance
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and financial performance.
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They could because the activists
have shown us they could.
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A shareholder can drive
change in a company.
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The difference is, Paul and Barry
do what they do to make money.
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The conscious investors would do it
to improve society and the environment
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and make money in the process
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and do it a little more
collaboratively and constructively.
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And they have the backing
of the some of the largest investors.
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Vanguard and BlackRock --
together, they manage trillions.
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They've been increasingly vocal
about the importance of ESG.
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The CEO of BlackRock has been
increasingly vocal in his annual letters
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about this issue.
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Even Jana Partners, the same OGs
that John called "greedy bastards,"
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recently co-wrote an open letter
to the board of Apple,
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saying, "Hey, your smartphones
are addictive for children.
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Fix it."
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Apple is working on it.
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So what it's going to take
is some pressure.
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It's going to take some pressure
on conscious investors
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to, in turn, put some pressure
on management
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to make changes that will improve
the environment and society.
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And where do they start?
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They start by picking an issue
that matters to them
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and taking a stand on it.
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Take a stand on an issue
that lines up with your purpose:
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water preservation,
labor rights, diversity.
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As long as it lines up
with your purpose, you are golden.
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And the biggest unlock?
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Get the senior-most investment
professionals focused on this.
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Today, when an activist
shows up to a campaign,
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it's the senior investment professional
talking to the CEO and the board
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and everyone hears about it.
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When a conscious investor shows up
to talk about an ESG issue,
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it's some junior person
in the risk department
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talking to some junior person
in the investor relations department,
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and nobody hears about it,
and that needs to change.
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And it's not some massive leap.
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Today, when a company
underperforms financially,
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who is on the hook?
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The senior investment professional.
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So what do they do?
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They drop everything
and work with management,
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collaboratively and constructively,
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to make changes to improve
the company's financial performance.
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The same should be true when the company
underperforms on ESG issues.
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And yes, that requires standardization
on how we measure ESG,
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but we're on it.
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So folks, here's my call to action:
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it's your money.
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It's your pension fund,
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it's your sovereign wealth fund.
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it's your university's endowment.
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It's your money.
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And it's your right to have your money
managed in line with your values.
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So use your voice
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and trust that it matters.
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It was your voice that got the investors
more conscious in the first place.
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You protested for years,
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because you didn't feel right
about your money being invested
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in companies whose values
don't line up with yours.
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It's time to use that voice again.
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But this time, instead of
pushing them to divest,
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push them to engage, truly engage,
truly work with management
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to make changes that will improve
their ESG performance.
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You made them aware of the issues.
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You can now focus them on fixing them.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)