Administration March 11, 2001

Social Funds Have New Calling – Recycling

November 15, 2000 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Pax World Funds, leading a coalition of socially focused institutional investors, has found a new target for change - calling on Sony's American division to embrace standards for computer recycling.
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The institutional investor coalition controls 771,000 shares of Sony, and also includes Citizens Funds, Walden Asset Management and the General Board of Pension & Health Benefits of The United Methodist Church.

They want Sony’s American division to accept standards proposed by the European Union (EU) for recycling obsolete computers and ending the use of toxic heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium (the European Commission Directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment).

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While 90% of computer contents can be reused, only about 6% of abandoned computers were recycled in 1998, according to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) cited in the coalition’s press release.  Information about the hazards of waste associated with abandoned computers can be found at: http://www.svtc.org/cleancc/eccc.htm .

The full text of the coalition’s letter is available on the Web at http://www.paxfund.com/sonyletter.html .

– Nevin Adams   editors@plansponsor.com

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