After much opposition by the Campaign working with the Make TIAA-CREF Ethicalcoalition, The Coca-Cola Company was dropped from the Broad Market Social Index (BMSI) list of socially responsible companies prepared by KLD Research & Analytics, Inc., an independent investment research firm that is considered a world leader in defining corporate responsibility standards.
It was reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (7/19/06) that "KLD based its decision on a number of issues--labor and human rights in Colombia, environmental issues in India..."
Based on KLD's decision, the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) divested 1.25 million shares of Coca-Cola Co. stock in July 2006, and banned further investments in its $9 billion CREF Social Choice Account, the nation's largest socially screened fund for individual investors, because The Coca-Cola Co. does not meet TIAA-CREF's standards as a socially responsible company.
However, TIAA-CREF has also been challenged over the past several years by the Campaign for still holding more than a billion dollars of investments in The Coca-Cola Company and various bottlers. We will be providing more information on this subject and will be escalating protest activity calling on TIAA-CREF not only to divest its investments in Coca-Cola, but to also live up to its slogan, "Financial services for the greater good" by divesting all investments in Reynolds American/RJ Reynolds Tobacco and other tobacco companies.
Thousands of faculty and staff who are participants in TIAA-CREF throughout the United States can play a critical role in making TIAA-CREF live up to its stated ideals by bringing pressure to divest of Coke and tobacco investments.