Is Your Pension Fund Wrecking The Environment ???

It just might be if this report can be believed:

If you work in US academic, research, medical, or cultural fields, your pension assets are likely managed by fund giant TIAA (formerly TIAA-CREF). The company touts itself as socially responsible but this carefully cultivated image is threatened by widespread evidence of environmental destruction and poor labor relations associated with TIAA global farmland investments. A campaign to call TIAA to task is underway, led by environmental and human rights groups from all over the world.

TIAA is among the one hundred largest corporations in the United States, serving over five million active and retired employees from more than sixteen thousand institutions. During the past decade, TIAA has become the largest global investor in farmland and agribusiness, accumulating over 1.6 million acres worldwide. In Brazil, TIAA is accused of evading national laws restricting foreign investments in farmland, a charge corroborated by both the New York Times and National Public Radio. In Guatemala, TIAA-linked investments are denounced as contributing to environmental destruction and human rights violations in palm oil operations according to a recent report in the New Yorker.

You can read the rest @
http://upsidedownworld.org/archives/guatemala/how-tiaa-funds-environmental-disaster-in-latin-america/

For many of us to retire in comfort, some poor slobs somewhere have to suffer (including other members of the animal and plant kingdoms). We have been taught to believe otherwise, but slowly the curtain is being pulled back allowing us to see what we're really doing to the world.