Economic Social Criteria Investment Screens
Military Weapons Social Criteria Screen
Approved by the ELCA Church Council – November 13, 1988
Updated by the Advisory Committee for Corporate Social Responsibility – January 22, 2007
Approved by the ELCA Church Council – November 2007
Authority: The ELCA has a legacy of peacemaking from its predecessor church bodies through the present. Our concern for peace is laid out in the social statement, “For Peace in God’s World” where we acknowledge the complexity and offer direction as we act to keep and build earthly peace.
Wording of screen: The ELCA makes no investment in firms which are contributors to nuclear, biological or chemical weapons research and development, or certain conventional weapons which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects, the production of key components for such weapons or the management of US Government owned facilities for such weapons.
Definition of Problem: The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons speaks to weapons that are considered to cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or to affect civilians indiscriminately.
Recognizing that various investors will implement this along a continuum, for the purpose of this screen investment might include nuclear, biological, chemical, land mines, cluster bombs, blinding laser weapons.
Social policy and studies:
For Peace in God’s World [ELCA, 1995] http://www.elca.org/socialstatements/peace/