A state lawmaker wants Maryland’s college savings plan to offer its investors an option to invest in socially responsible funds.
Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Montgomery) wrote last week to state Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D), who chairs the board that oversees the so-called 529 fund, urging the college savings plan to include “investment options that integrate social, environmental and corporate governance criteria into the investment decision-making criteria, alongside rigorous financial analysis.”
“The goal of this sustainable investing approach is to achieve positive market returns and positive social, environmental and corporate governance impacts,” Charkoudian wrote.
The lawmaker laid out four central arguments for doing so: Return on investment is more than financial, she said, and can achieve positive impacts on public health, the environment, labor rights, racial and gender equality, and other social conditions.
What’s more, Charkoudian wrote, the number of socially responsible investment options are increasing – and their financial performance is improving. She noted that seven states plus the District of Columbia have recently offered the option for their 529 investment programs. The others are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
“When we consider financial returns, investor choice, and the alignment of assets with social and environmental values, it is clear that Maryland’s College Savings Plan platform should include socially and environmentally responsible options,” Charkoudian concluded in her letter to Kopp.
In a related development, the Maryland 529 board this week named Erin Layton as the agency’s new executive director and CEO. Layton previously had served as director of investments for Maryland 529.
The appointment was first reported by the Baltimore Business Journal.
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
Related Articles
House committee’s decision to amend a popular consumer protection bill puts its fate in doubt as Sine Die approaches.
‘I can’t wait to talk to all the librarians and the parents and the advocates who worked with me the last 12 months,’ says exultant sponsor of Freedom to Read Act.
There were 71 lobbyists registered to represent the utilities’ interests in 2023, according to the report, led by Baltimore Gas and Electric and Pepco, which each used 22 lobbyists last year.
Creative Commons Attribution