HCS is officially a PRI Network Supporter 
HCS is officially a PRI Network Supporter
Responsible Investment in the Real Economy
By Tom Croft, Managing Director of HCS & Executive Director for the SVA, and
Marco Trbovich, Vice President of Strategic Communications for Tricom Associates
The Heartland Network launched a series of regional Responsible Investment Forums in 2012 to spur new investments for addressing capital gaps in the economy. Under Heartland’s banner, four RI Forums were held in Atlanta, LA, Philadelphia and Detroit, cities hard hit by the Great Recession. Led by a core network of innovative investment professionals, the forums were 
robust roundtables that brought together over 130 fund managers and capital stewards, labor and business leaders, and community and green jobs advocates from around the U.S. The forums examined opportunities and challenges posed by investing in real and clean economy sectors, with a hard focus on their promise of creating good jobs.
A consensus emerged from this remarkable tour that Heartland should keep the road show going and build a bold responsible investment network moving forward. In short, the consensus was that RI investing needs to be framed as “rebuilding America,” an approach that involves minimizing risk to investors while maximizing return to beneficiaries and the public – in essence, creating collaborative investment strategies. Next stop for the road show, most likely: Chicago in the Fall of 2012.
Aimed squarely at mobilizing the fund managers and stewards of “workers’ capital” to help rebuild American cities, regions and industries, the Heartland RI Forums were organized as a partnership with the Blue-Green Alliance (itself a coalition of unions and environmental organizations) and were planned collaboratively with the AFL-CIO and other allies who share a commitment to RI.
Working with CalPERS, CalSTRS and other business and governmental partners in the Clinton Global Initiative, the AFL-CIO and its investment allies have already committed to increasing infrastructure investment with a goal of at least $10 billion in new funding over the next five years. Labor-affiliated funds also will invest at least $20 million in the next year in energy-efficient retrofits of commercial, industrial and public buildings.
But as investment pioneer Phil Angelides warned in LA: “The ultimate tragedy of the past decade is that we created $13 trillion in mortgage securities - many of which were destructive - rather than deploying that capital in ways to make us a global leader in renewable energy or in rebuilding our infrastructure.”
Importantly, the Heartland tour showed that responsible investors were not investing in sub-prime mortgages and other failed or rigged schemes, and were not flipping or over-levering good companies.
Capital Gaps and Continued Hard-times in Hometowns
The global credit crisis has impaired the ability of banks, investors and governments to provide a sufficient amount of long-term capital required to finance important economic sectors. In the U.S., which is over three years into the economic recovery, there
are still corporations and investors that are squatting on the sidelines, hoarding $2 trillion, while our nation suffers a near eight percent unemployment rate (and that's just the official rate). And while some regions of the economy are finally mending, many of our citizens and their cities and towns are still struggling with bankruptcies, falling bridges and closing schools. The cancer of rust-belt-closed factories, lost jobs and benefits, and lost hopes has metastasized, sickening once-booming sun-belt cities. Meanwhile, one of the hottest summers on record and a chronic rain-drought are compounding the drought in jobs.
The impact on the four cities we visited on the Heartland tour has been significant. Atlanta suffered heretofore unthinkable levels of home foreclosures, and the South joined the rest of the nation in being jolted by plant closures. Los Angeles and Southern California: one of the hardest-hit areas due to the housing crisis. Philadelphia and the East: slammed by high urban unemployment. And the Detroit story is well-known: the near collapse of the auto industry that hollowed out Michigan cities and hammered nearby states. An archipelago of bankruptcies and tent cities were strung across the country like a string of dessert islands.
Amidst these woes there are huge and growing investment opportunities in the clean economy and infrastructure, and significant capital gaps to be filled:
