An initial meeting of Church Finance Executives to discuss ethical finance issues.

The Church and Society Forum (CSF) undertook a research project in 2012 looking at ethical finance policy within Churches in Ireland. We contacted all our member churches in this regard and the research team were able to meet with a wide range of finance professionals across the churches leading to the production of a very helpful report. The report was brought to the Irish Inter Church Committee in June 2012 and the recommendations approved. It was also published in the ICC annual report the same year. 

In the course of the research CSF representatives identified a clear consensus among participants that a meeting of key finance personnel from the Irish Churches would be of value. The principal objective of such a meeting would be to provide a space for networking and information–sharing. All those consulted agreed that there are significant areas of common concern and discussion of these issues in an Irish context could prove beneficial.

The report recommends: “Establishing a meeting for regular exchange and sharing of information between key church personnel in the area of finance and investments, following the model of the Church Investors Group in the UK. Such a meeting might lead to the establishment of joint working groups to develop policy recommendations on specific issues and/or the possibility of sharing resources, which might extend to the acquisition of external analyses.”

In this regard member churches were church to send an appropriate senior level representative to attend a meeting to begin this process. The CSF team will share their report on ethical investment and we have invited Mr. John Arnold of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility to speak. We have also invited Finance representatives of Trocaire and Christian Aid.