Why the Dakota Access Pipeline could mean trouble for banks

In North Dakota, thousands of tribal leaders and activists are camped along the Cannonball River by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to resist the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). Once complete, the pipeline is expected to carry 570,000 barrels of oil per day from the Bakken and Three Forks oil fields in North Dakota to Illinois. Opponents, chief among them the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, argue that the project threatens supplies of drinking water and has already destroyed sacred sites, including burial grounds. The tribe recently filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the federal lands the pipeline will cross and which granted permits to Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based energy company sponsoring DAPL. Recently, after a federal judge denied the request to halt construction, the Obama administration overruled the decision. But the move is only temporary. In addition to pursuing justice through legal means, a new potentially powerful strategy to combat construction was announced on September 3 during a rally at the encampment. Beginning that day, protest organizers launched a two-week call for action against the financial institutions bankrolling DAPL. It was recently revealed that more than two dozen

September 14, 2016 No Comments

Why Azzad didn’t invest in private prisons

When the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it would stop contracting with for-profit prison operators, Azzad’s investment team remembered why we chose not to invest in private prisons. At Azzad, we follow internationally accepted criteria for Islamic investing: avoiding interest, leverage, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and pork products. We also implement selected additional social justice screens that we believe are in line with the universal faith imperative to protect people and the environment. For example, we don’t invest in weapons producers or companies practicing the devastating drilling practice known as fracking. Sometimes we hear from clients about these additional screens. “The traditional screens are already strict,” they tell us. “Why do you add more?” The answer is two-fold: because we believe it’s the right thing to do and we believe doing the right thing pays off in the long run. Yesterday we saw a great example of this when the DOJ made its announcement, dealing a major blow to the for-profit prison industry. Here’s the background. In May 2015, a REIT (real estate investment trust) company called Corrections Corporation of America (NYSE: CXW) passed Azzad’s financial ratio screens. CCA is one of the biggest players in the private prison

August 22, 2016 No Comments

Johns Hopkins event promotes Islamic finance, SRI

On Tuesday, February 25, a group of government officials, academics, professionals, and students crowded into Rome Auditorium at 6:00 pm on the Washington, DC campus of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. They were there to hear panelists explore the interplay between Islamic finance and socially responsible investing, or SRI. The event, sponsored by the DC Interfaith Network and the Student Middle East and North Africa Club at Johns Hopkins University, aimed to demystify the sometimes misunderstood concept of Islamic finance and investing. “The original title of the event was, ‘Islamic Finance and Socially Responsible Investing: What we can learn from each other,’” said a representative from Azzad Asset Management, one of the expert organizations presenting at the event. “We prevailed upon the organizers to change the second part of the title to ‘An evening of dialogue and learning’ because Islamic finance is already part and parcel of SRI investing. Faith-based investing of many varieties has always been a part of the movement. It speaks to the important and long-standing tradition of social justice.” Indeed, modern SRI investing in the United States traces its roots to the Quaker and Methodist denominations of Christianity. But more generally, religion from its

March 10, 2014 No Comments