Product Overview

The Socially Sensitive Investing Group at U.S. Trust is asked to develop criteria for assessing the fairness of labor practices in both union and nonunion companies. U.S. Trust's client, the Calvert Social Investment Fund, wants more explicit standards than those currently in use. Contrasting views of two members of the Calvert Fund's Advisory Council are detailed in the case, along with U.S. Trust's preliminary perspective. The unabridged version of the case includes background on socially motivated investors and on the financial impact of applying social criteria to investments. The abridged version (UVA-E-0040) omits this background and focuses on the task of establishing labor-related investment criteria. If this case and "U.S. Trust: Investing in Waste Management, Inc." (UVA-E-0036) are used together, the abridged form of one of the cases and the unabridged form of the other should be used, because the background information on socially sensitive investing is identical in the two cases.