Keble JCR passed this motion at the last meeting of Michelmas term 2004. It commits the common room to supporting the principle of transparency and mandates the JCR President to ask about the current state of investments. It also promises to survey students about SRI - so we can gather all the information necessary to propose a SRI motion at a later date. I think it is quite a good first motion to use as it introduces the concept of SRI and allows the preliminary work to take place – but students who are still unsure can support the important principle of transparency without feeling that they are committed to SRI. Indeed, there is a promise that before we propose a SRI motion, all students will have been surveyed on the subject. We will be in a much stronger position to pass the SRI motion once we have found out which companies the college supports – so we can raise awareness of their activities – and also surveyed people to learn what percentage of respondents support SRI. The survey will also give us an idea which aspects of SRI (health, environment, human rights etc.) matter to the people of Keble, so we can argue for a SRI policy based on the democratic preferences of our students.

This is the proposal to our Exec Committee urging them to adopt a formal transparency policy, and to use an ethical investment research service (e.g. EIRIS) to screen College investments regularly. It is built into a JCR motion I hope to present in our meeting on Sunday 30th Jan.(Word doc, 82kb).

That we think the college should be transparent in its investments and a mandate for the President to look into this.