Taking a Pause: Embracing a Sabbatical to Reflect on Change

By Eric Becker, Partner and Portfolio Manager

I still remember clearly my first day of work in the social investing field – June 1, 1993. I was 23 years old. It was raining in Boston, and I had a new umbrella to keep me dry. I was also wearing a new suit I had recently purchased at Besse Clark, an old-school men’s clothing shop in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts (it closed the following year). The tailor there had asked me what line of work I was going into and when I told him investment management, he said I needed to “show a little cuff” of my shirtsleeves. 

The world has changed more than a little since I walked through the doors at Franklin Research & Development (which changed its name to Trillium Asset Management in 1999) that Tuesday. “Casual Fridays” hadn’t yet been instituted, so it was suit and tie five days a week. The internet was something used primarily by the military and computer geeks. Email hadn’t been adopted as a common communications tool. At 4pm, I would often stand by the fax machine waiting for corporate earnings reports to arrive after the closing bell of the stock market. Yes, I’m ageing myself. 

The social and environmental issues of greatest concern were different from today as well. We were focused on saving old growth forests and preventing toxic pollution, but mitigating climate change hadn’t emerged as an issue yet. Only a handful of major companies reported on their social or environmental impact. That changed dramatically in the decade that followed, thanks in no small part to the work of Ceres, which was co-launched by Trillium founder Joan Bavaria after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the Global Reporting Initiative, which was hatched in 1997 in the Trillium office.

I was hired all those years ago to edit the company’s investment newsletter, Franklin’s Insight, which was one of just a few publications covering the emerging field of socially responsible investing. Another was The Clean Yield, published by a tiny firm in Vermont. We were friendly competitors and exchanged newsletters. That’s how I first learned of Clean Yield and became familiar with founders Rian and Doug’s approach to social investing.

I spent 16 years at Trillium, moving to Clean Yield in the fall of 2009 with only a couple weeks off between jobs. Now, almost 32 years after I started at Trillium and more than 15 since I started at Clean Yield, I am taking a three-month sabbatical. I’m excited to step away for a longer period to recharge and allow myself the space for both introspection and fresh perspectives on the state of the world. This will include a weeklong meditation retreat in March and a visit with my eldest brother in Kodiak, Alaska in May, but I am leaving myself plenty of unstructured time for other pursuits.

One of the things I will be reflecting on is my personal theory of change, which has been the foundation of my work.

I have been generally optimistic about humanity learning from its past and evolving toward a more enlightened state. In my work, evidence for that theory has been present in our changing expectations over the past 30 years for how companies should behave. In the early 1990s, most corporate leaders held to Milton Friedman’s 1970 definition of corporate social responsibility: “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits….”

Friedman’s philosophy looked increasingly dated as we moved toward the new millennium. Through the shareholder engagement process, social investors worked with labor unions, environmental organizations, and social justice non-profits to convince companies that it is good business to have strong sustainability programs, cultures of inclusion, a focus on safe products, robust benefits for their employees, etc.

These practices reduce risk, build brand value, foster a strong and productive workforce, and ultimately should result in a more profitable company.

And over the past 30 years, the currents have been strong in that direction, with few cases of companies actively moving in the reverse direction. Alas, that has swiftly changed in the past few months, with daily stories of companies scrapping sustainability and DEI goals under pressure from right wing activists or even the president himself. The assumptions at the base of my theory of change are being challenged at a profound level. The optimist in me latches onto the hope that this is a temporary setback and that the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice. But now that feels very much in doubt.

I don’t expect I will find the answers to any big questions during my three-month break, but I hope to come back with a clear mind and a refreshed outlook, ready to tackle the challenges ahead. In the meantime, I’m confident in the rest of the Clean Yield team, who are ready to step in if you need anything in my absence, and I look forward to reconnecting in the summer.  

Learn more about Eric and the rest of the Clean Yield team.