We wanted to share an update from Trillium Asset Management’s progressive work with environmental protection. Blue Summit utilizes Trillium’s ESG Global Equity Fund in our Fossil Fuel Free models.
A recent letter sent to the EPA urges permanent protection for the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery, which is where Robert spends his summers commercial fishing. The letter calls for two actions. First, initiate 404c under the Clean Water Act to restrict mine waste disposal in wetlands in the Bristol Bay watershed. Second, establish a National Fisheries Area to provide permanent federal protection against large-scale mining. Notably, the signatories include a majority of the SRI fund companies we use in our Blue Summit investment models.
“Pollution from mineral extraction generates very real, but currently unpriced, economic, social, and environmental externalities,” said Jonas Kron, Chief Advocacy Officer of Trillium Asset Management. “We believe the Bristol Bay salmon fishery has too much economic and inherent value to risk on the short-term benefits of a large-scale mine like Pebble.”
Bristol Bay supports the largest and most productive wild salmon fishery on earth, supplying half of the world’s commercial supply of wild sockeye salmon, $2.2 billion in annual revenue, 15,000 jobs, and sustaining Alaska Native communities that have relied on the salmon for millennia. Bristol Bay Native Tribes, commercial fishermen, business leaders, conservation organizations, and others have long opposed the Pebble Mine.