OpenInvest Challenges Socio-Economic Inequality; Launches Racial Justice Cause

SAN FRANCISCO, June 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenInvest, the asset management platform that enables customization, direct indexing and impact investing at scale, announced today that it added a Racial Justice cause to its suite of socially responsible investment offerings. The new cause allows investors to invest in the companies committed to racial justice, both in their workforce and among their key company stakeholders. 

In the U.S., race-based discrimination is illegal, yet progress toward achieving diversity and socio-economic equality is only incremental. Injustice persists across America. Some corporations have touted their commitments to diversity in their ranks, but results at the executive level are dismal. Caucasian/White men hold 66 percent of all Fortune 500 board seats and 91 percent of chairmanships on those boards.¹ There are only three African-American CEOs in the S&P 500. But corporations do not just impact society through their employee base; companies also perpetuate systemic inequality by ignoring the environmental impacts of their businesses on minority communities. Approximately 20 of the top 100 corporate air polluters emit more than two-thirds of their total air pollution in regions populated by racial minorities², whereas demand for many of these companies' products comes from predominantly white communities.

"Racial justice is a cause that's been on our roadmap since day one," said Claire Veuthey, director of ESG & impact, OpenInvest. "Diversity is not easily defined, and we know that lip service to diversity does not necessarily equate to real diversity. OpenInvest's Racial Justice cause aims to tackle socio-economic inequality head-on by holding Corporate America accountable and empowering investors to use their financial assets as a force for good."  

OpenInvest delivers custom investment portfolios aligned with the most important environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues facing people today. OpenInvest's Racial Justice cause leverages the power of financial assets to help drive social and economic growth for disenfranchised groups and encourage companies to strive for racial justice. The cause builds portfolios by overweighting companies with the following criteria:

• Those that have set quantitative targets for racial diversity in their employee base
• Those that regularly publish diversity reports on their employee base

Simultaneously, the cause divests investors from the following:

• Companies that have been named in recent diversity controversies
• Companies that disproportionately pollute in low-income or minority communities 

The OpenInvest platform integrates multi-sourced ESG data and offers a number of causes, such as divestment from fossil fuel and top greenhouse gas producers; investment in gender equality and LGBTQIA+-friendly companies; supporting refugees, and more. Unlike mutual funds or ETFs, an OpenInvest portfolio provides granular customization, direct shareholder engagement, proxy voting, while its proprietary algorithms automatically rebalance portfolios to keep them dynamically diversified as investors divest/invest. 

For more information on OpenInvest, please visit https://openinvest.com.

About OpenInvest
OpenInvest (https://openinvest.com) is a registered investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and a financial technology startup dedicated to mainstreaming values-based investing through technology. The company was founded by two of the architects of Bridgewater Associates' portfolio management and trading systems and a sustainable finance expert from the World Wildlife Fund. OpenInvest is backed by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, including Andreessen Horowitz, YCombinator, Kevin Durant's Thirty Five Ventures, and QED, the founders of CapitalOne. OpenInvest now has a team of financial, technology, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) experts across three continents and is recognized as a global thought leader in ESG implementation. OpenInvest's technology platform supports full customization around investor values, in-depth impact reporting, dynamic divest-invest activity, and easy shareholder engagement, while ensuring investors track specified market indices. To get started, contact your adviser, visit openinvest.com, or download the iOS or Android app. Follow OpenInvest on Facebook and Twitter.

Media Contact:
Jill Fox
JCUTLER media group
[email protected] 

¹According to a multiyear study published by the Alliance for Board Diversity (ABD), in collaboration with Deloitte. https://www.catalyst.org/media-release/number-of-fortune-500-boards-with-over-40-percent-diversity-doubled-since-2012/
² According to the Political Economy Research Institute of UMASS Amherst: https://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic-100-air-polluters-index-2018-report-based-on-2015-data

SOURCE OpenInvest