Hill Advocacy Day 2025 — The Impact Investing Community Presents a Unified Voice

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Photo: Clean Yield’s Liz Levy, third from left, and other members of US SIF with Senator Ed Markey

By Elizabeth R. Levy, CFA, Managing Director of Investment Research

I’m trying to think of a Clean Yield-ish pun comparing the humid, late June 100-plus-degree weather in our nation’s capital with the swamp it is frequently accused of being, but I think the pun center of my brain may have melted. Despite the horrendous weather, I’m glad to have had the opportunity to meet with several congressional staffers at US SIF’s Capitol Hill Day. I am a board member of US SIF, the sustainable investment industry’s trade association, and I attended the organization’s conference in Washington last month.  

I have been finding strength and solace, personally and professionally, in community. As the current political environment continues to be challenging for all of us who care about issues of sustainability and justice, I am finding it helpful and reinvigorating to learn from and commiserate with others. With that perspective, I was excited to attend the conference and learn what other sustainability-minded investors are seeing, hearing, and fearing. US SIF’s Hill Day was one of several similar events put on by like-minded organizations throughout the year, bringing members and perspectives of the sustainable investment community to meet with members and staffers of both houses of Congress on topics of interest to our firms and our clients. 

I live outside of Boston, so the group of investors I was traveling with in June met with staffers of members of the Massachusetts delegation, including my Senator and Representative, Ed Markey and Katherine Clark, as well as Representatives Jake Auchincloss and Seth Moulton. I met with Senator Markey’s staff the last time I participated in this event two years ago, and we met with the same two staffers this year, which I found reassuring. There were more than a dozen similar US SIF groups running between the Congressional office buildings that day, thankful for the underground tunnels connecting many of the buildings and keeping us out of the heat. 

The main purpose of the meetings I attended was to make sure the Congressional staffers knew what sustainable investing is, and that we investors—individually or collectively through US SIF—are happy to be a resource for them. Both Markey and Clark’s staffers asked us to provide them with information or lists of companies that organizations like Clean Yield invest in, and where these companies are headquartered. The staffers hoped to use the information to try to persuade Senate negotiators who were working on the Reconciliation Bill (aka. the Big Beautiful/Ugly Bill that was ultimately signed into law) to protect credits for clean energy, including wind and solar power. There were also a few specific topics we wanted to bring up — those clean energy tax credits, funding for Impact Investment organizations through the CDFI Fund (as we mentioned in May), and a warning about the erosion of shareholder rights that has already begun (as we in March).  

In general, I found the staffers to be somewhat knowledgeable about our industry, which was a pleasant surprise, and in agreement with us on all the issues we raised, which was not at all surprising given the offices I visited. These meetings, which I’ve participated in a few times at the state and federal levels, are uplifting—the folks working in these offices asked insightful questions and were glad to hear of our perspective as investors. On the day we were there, June 26, staffers were waiting for news about the provisions of the Reconciliation Bill. Did I change any minds that day? Nope, but I’m glad to have had the chance to connect with staffers and help them try to protect our clients’ rights as shareholders, the ability of the companies we invest in to further their work in clean energy, and the funding of our impact investments in any way we can.

It is important to be a resource for our representatives and their staffers, bringing the voice of our industry and clients into the policymakers’ perspective as they weigh their votes.   

And yet, it was hard to not fret, as we broiled in the climate change-fed heat, and the ruling party hashed out back room deals to strip health care from millions of Americans. That same day, in the same halls, Newsweek reported that, “Capitol Police officers were seen zip-tying the hands of senior citizens in wheelchairs on Wednesday during protests against proposed Medicaid cuts.”  

Our work is not done, far from it. We will keep on, in community with all those working toward a more just, inclusive, and sustainable world. 

Shareholder advocacy is an essential part of Clean Yield’s work to help our clients make a positive impact on the world — learn more.

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