Michael Kramer

Welcome to my archive of newsletter articles and blog posts. For more information on my service offerings, please go to my advisor webpage.

Natural Investments Becomes the First Perpetual Purpose Trust in Financial Services

Natural Investments recently converted its company ownership from six financial advisors to the Natural Investments Purpose Trust. That’s right, we’re now essentially owned by a purpose!  Creating this trust over the past 18 months means that Natural Investments will continue to exist in perpetuityas an independent firm owned by an entity rather than individuals. Now …

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Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing Hits the Big Time

We’ve reached the big time. When every major media outlet, Congress, the Department of Labor, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are all focused on issues pertaining to sustainable, responsible, and impact (SRI) investing, it’s clear that this segment of the financial services industry has hit its stride in terms of popularity, impact, and yes, …

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ESG Investing: Reaping What We’ve Sown                       

Driven by ever-increasing investor demand, most major investment institutions are practicing sustainable, responsible, and impact (SRI) investing. As a result, the number of products claiming to integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria continues to rise. Per Morningstar®, there are now more than 600 ESG mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the U.S., including 87 …

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Shareholder Advocacy Review – Summer 2022

Our engagements with lawmakers this quarter focused on deforestation, climate change risk, and workers’ rights. We signed a collaborative investor letter facilitated by Domini Investments in support of the Fostering Overseas Rule of Law and Environmentally Sound Trade (FOREST) Act, which prohibits access to U.S. markets for commodities that originate from illegally deforested land. The …

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2021 Shareholder Advocacy Review: The Winds at Our Back

Natural Investments remained active in advocacy efforts in the past year to bring about needed improvements to the economic system while fostering equity and justice for women and people of color. We continued to engage major corporations on their policies and practices, funneled more capital to traditionally marginalized populations and educated policymakers about appropriate oversight …

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Shareholder Advocacy Review – Winter 2022

We finally get to take some victory laps! After years battling the previous administration, we are finally seeing executive branch actions that roll back its archaic rules and guidance that clearly benefited corporations and not investors. SUCCESSES The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for example, recently issued new guidance addressing the criteria by which shareholders …

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