Climate Technology

Model Summer Rayne Oakes quizzes him on socially responsible investing

In this guest post, model and sustainable business consultant Summer Rayne Oakes recounts her recent interview with socially responsible investing expert Thomas Van Dyck. (Read more about Oakes in a Grist profile.)

I first met Thomas Van Dyck in June 2005 during the height of San Francisco's World Environment Day celebrations. It was a brief two-minute introduction wedged between a chaotic green trade show and a trippy drum-circle gathering. All I managed to find out during that time was his job description: investment consultant. In my mind, I lumped him in with the typical French-cuffed, Ferragamo-tied, Rolex-wearing beings I see on my occasional sojourns to Wall Street. I couldn't have been more wrong.

As I learned after running into him a few more times, Thomas Van Dyck is one of the top socially responsible investment (SRI) consultants in the business. He happened into the field in the early '80s, while working as an environmental activist, and he's helped to shape and grow SRI ever since. Van Dyck and his team, who work in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District, consult on close to a billion dollars in assets, with clients ranging from foundations, unions, and pension funds to entrepreneurs and celebrities. Ninety-nine percent of his clients have at least one socio-environmental screen on their portfolios, and the vast majority has multiple screens. In addition to his investment work, Van Dyck founded As You Sow in 1992, a nonprofit organization that uses shareholder advocacy to push for more enlightened corporate practices.

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