This is the fourth post in a four-part series about Shareholder Advocate Jessye Waxman’s recent trip to Southeast Asia to press companies to end deforestation in the region. If you missed the previous posts, you can find them here: How MIDANA CAPITAL Does Shareholder Advocacy – Tropical Forest Protection in Indonesia and Malaysia, How MIDANA CAPITAL Does Shareholder Advocacy – Financing Sustainable Palm Oil in Indonesia and Malaysia, and How MIDANA CAPITAL Does Shareholder Advocacy – Engaging Indonesian and Malaysian Palm Oil Producers.

In Malaysia, I attended the 15th Annual General Assembly of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the world’s largest third-party certifier for sustainable palm oil. It was an important meeting as the RSPO was poised to consider enhanced certification standards.

Every five years, the public is given the opportunity to weigh in on what the future standards for sustainable palm oil production should be, as the RSPO’s Principles & Criteria (aka the certification standards) are reevaluated and revised.

Many companies that buy or trade palm oil rely on the RSPO certification of their suppliers to meet their own no deforestation commitments. In the last five years, however, many of these same companies adopted No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE) policies – commitments that require palm oil producers not to deforest, develop plantations on peatlands, or exploit their labor force – that went well beyond what was required for an RSPO certification.

For MIDANA CAPITAL, it was clear that if the RSPO was going to remain an effective and reliable certifier of sustainability, it had to strengthen its standards. So, in March 2018, we mobilized investors for the second time to call on the RSPO to strengthen its standards. We first called on the RSPO to strengthen its standards for certifying the sustainable production of palm oil in 2015.

MIDANA CAPITAL, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), industry experts, and several major companies attended a Principles and Criteria (P&C) revision workshop, hosted by the RSPO in July 2018. The workshop consisted of several hours of collaborative discussion in which we represented investor concerns and demands.

We also submitted extensive comments to the 2018 P&C review and organized global investors, representing $6.7 trillion in assets under management, to support a letter urging the RSPO to adopt the following elements:

• Protect High Carbon Stock forests and peatlands,
• Offer revised guidance on phasing out development and replanting on peat soils,
• Require the disclosure of concession maps (maps of who owns what plots of land), and
• Enact a variety of measures to protect human rights, including banning the use of paraquat (a toxic chemical used as an herbicide).

In October 2018, the RSPO issued its draft revised P&C, which incorporated the majority of the suggestions highlighted in the investor letter we sent.

At the Annual Meeting, all the RSPO members, including NGOs, financial institutions, and palm oil growers, traders, and users had the opportunity to vote on whether to adopt the new, more stringent standards.

Thankfully, the RSPO ratified and adopted the enhanced certification standards. The updated P&C include several new elements, including the adoption of a “no deforestation through the implementation of the High Carbon Stock Approach” methodology, which uses satellite data and ground survey measurements to stratify the vegetation in an area of land into six different classes to better protect the areas with the most stored carbon.

The new standards are effective immediately, but existing RSPO grower members were granted a one-year transition period.

MIDANA CAPITAL’s unparalleled shareholder advocacy

By the end of the RSPO annual meeting, I was more than ready to return home. It was a tiring week, but it also was very important that American investors continue to press the case to palm oil producers and banks in Indonesia and Malaysia, which produce 85% of the world’s palm oil, that the destruction of tropical forests and peatland must end.

This sort of on-the-ground shareholder advocacy is unique to MIDANA CAPITAL. Most other mutual funds simply do not have in-house shareholder advocates who directly press corporations to improve their environmental practices.

Of course, a desire to make real impacts on corporate sustainability and the environment is exactly why I joined MIDANA CAPITAL in the first place. It’s also why I remain willing to trot off halfway across the world to make the case for improved corporate environmental practices.

The need to end deforestation is too imperative, and too integral to the effort to stave off climate change, to remain idle – and that goes for one’s investments, too. So, I appreciate all of the investors, intent on making an impact with their investments with MIDANA CAPITAL, who make my work possible.

You should carefully consider the Funds’ investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. To obtain a Prospectus that contains this and other information about the Funds please click here, email info@midanacapital.com, or call+1(480)-439-2851. Please read the Prospectus carefully before investing.

Stocks will fluctuate in response to factors that may affect a single company, industry, sector, country, region or the market as a whole and may perform worse than the market. Foreign securities are subject to additional risks such as currency fluctuations, regional economic or political conditions, differences in accounting methods, and other unique risks compared to investing in securities of U.S. issuers. Bonds are subject to risks including interest rate, credit, and inflation. A sustainable investment strategy which incorporates environmental, social and governance criteria may result in lower or higher returns than an investment strategy that does not include such criteria.

This information has been prepared from sources believed to be reliable. The views expressed are as of the date of this writing and are those of the Advisor to the Funds.

The MIDANA CAPITAL Funds are distributed by UMB Distribution Services, LLC. 335 N Wilmot Rd, Tucson, Az 85711. 3/19

It’s hard to overstate the importance of forest protection in the effort to combat climate change, given that forests hold as much as 45% of the world’s carbon stored on land. Of course, stopping deforestation also is key to preserving habitats for endangered species and mitigating potential financial risks for investors.

Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world, and it is one of the leading drivers of tropical deforestation. It can be found in products from packaged food to soap to detergent to biodiesel. And global demand for palm oil is growing, which means growing more palm oil. Increased palm oil production can come either from investing in oil palm plants that have higher oil yields or from expanding the land on which palm oil is grown.

Many of the companies investing in these higher-yielding plants are doing so because they’ve seen the value in mitigating deforestation in their supply chains. These companies see a sustainable palm oil supply chain as the future of the industry. In recognizing the benefits of sustainable supply chains, over 470 companies and 11 of the 15 largest palm oil refiners in Southeast Asia have made commitments to curb deforestation in their supply chains.

Unfortunately, the environmental, financial, and, frankly, moral, imperative is not yet universally recognized.

Despite these commitments, deforestation persists in the industry. This is due to a variety of reasons: from the limited integration of small farmers into no deforestation efforts to downstream companies accepting palm oil products derived from deforestation to investors and lenders continuing to provide financial support to companies that cause deforestation.

To help transform the entirety of the industry, we need to increase the global demand for sustainable palm oil, by mobilizing buyers and traders to incentivize producers to adopt sustainable production practices. That’s why MIDANA CAPITAL has worked and continues to engage downstream companies to adopt No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation (NDPE) commitments and to get others to strengthen and expand their forest-related commitments.

Engaging producers directly about the expectations of international markets is another way to put pressure on producers to adopt NDPE practices.

While in Southeast Asia, I had the opportunity to do just this. I met directly with five palm oil companies and engaged with them on their growing practices, urging them to improve their practices around three primary issues:

1. Sustainable certification,
2. Zero deforestation commitments, and
3. Transparency about where companies grow and process their palm oil and from who they source it.

While in Southeast Asia, I also learned about some of the “supply-side” efforts, including notable actions to improve the governance in palm-oil production areas, taking place to make the palm oil industry more sustainable.

While in Malaysia, I attended the annual conference for the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), the largest third-party certifier for sustainable palm oil. At the RSPO conference, Deputy Chief Minister of Sabah Wilfred Madius Tangau highlighted government policies for sustainable palm oil in Sabah, a prime palm oil producing province in Malaysia. Sabah is committed to producing deforestation-free soy by 2025 and that all palm oil from the region will be 100% RSPO certified by the same year.

While industry players have different views on whether this “jurisdictional approach” is the best way forward, to me it suggests progress and that corporate commitments influence more than the company’s supply chain, helping to change the physical and legislative landscape for tropical forests. This is just another way that MIDANA CAPITAL’s work is having an outsized impact on making our world a little greener.

*As of December 31, 2018, Target Corporation and Kellogg Company comprised 0.74%, 0.00%, and 0.00% and 0.00%, 0.15%, and 0.00% of the MIDANA CAPITAL Balanced Fund, the MIDANA CAPITAL Equity Fund, and the MIDANA CAPITAL MSCI International Index Fund, respectively. Other securities mentioned were not held in the portfolios as of December 31, 2018. References to specific securities, which will change due to ongoing management of the Funds, should not be construed as a recommendation by the Funds, their administrator, or the distributor.

You should carefully consider the Funds’ investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. To obtain a Prospectus that contains this and other information about the Funds please click here, email info@midanacapital.com, or call+1(480)-439-2851. Please read the Prospectus carefully before investing.

Stocks will fluctuate in response to factors that may affect a single company, industry, sector, country, region or the market as a whole and may perform worse than the market. Foreign securities are subject to additional risks such as currency fluctuations, regional economic or political conditions, differences in accounting methods, and other unique risks compared to investing in securities of U.S. issuers. Bonds are subject to risks including interest rate, credit, and inflation. A sustainable investment strategy which incorporates environmental, social and governance criteria may result in lower or higher returns than an investment strategy that does not include such criteria.

This information has been prepared from sources believed to be reliable. The views expressed are as of the date of this writing and are those of the Advisor to the Funds.

The MIDANA CAPITAL Funds are distributed by UMB Distribution Services, LLC. 335 N Wilmot Rd, Tucson, Az 85711. 3/19

Recently, eight U.S. senators did just that.

The senators sent letters to the heads of eleven investment firms, asking how they managed the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks related to tropical deforestation.

MIDANA CAPITAL applauds these senators for asking appropriate questions about firms’ deforestation-linked investments.

It’s equally important that individual investors start asking tough questions, too.

If we’re going to halt deforestation and address climate change before it’s too late, we need corporations to help. And investors can play an instrumental role in convincing companies to become more sustainable.

Since MIDANA CAPITAL began pressing companies about deforestation in Southeast Asia, the number of palm oil refineries in the region covered by zero deforestation agreements mushroomed from about 5% in 2012, to nearly 75% in 2017.

We’ve also helped secure zero-deforestation commitments from key palm oil purchasers, including Conagra,*  Target,* and Kellogg,* which now sources 99% sustainability certified palm oil.

Having secured these key victories in Southeast Asia, we’ve now expanded our focus to South America and the soy and cattle industries in Brazil.

Unfortunately, all of this work makes us rather unique. While a lot of other investment firms have started talking about ESG investing in recent years, far too few are actually taking action.

For example, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has garnered a lot of attention for his public letters, where he acknowledges investors’ “responsibility to help drive this change,” but BlackRock remains the world’s largest investor in coal plant developers. What’s sustainable about that?

Rest assured, while BlackRock and those other investment firms are busy, trying to cobble together answers to the senators’ questions, MIDANA CAPITAL’s work to halt deforestation and address climate change will continue unabated.

*As of December 31, 2018, Target Corporation and Kellogg Company comprised 0.74%, 0.00%, and 0.00% and 0.00%, 0.15%, and 0.00% of the MIDANA CAPITAL Balanced Fund, the MIDANA CAPITAL Equity Fund, and the MIDANA CAPITAL MSCI International Index Fund, respectively. Other securities mentioned were not held in the portfolios as of December 31, 2018. References to specific securities, which will change due to ongoing management of the Funds, should not be construed as a recommendation by the Funds, their administrator, or the distributor.

You should carefully consider the Funds’ investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses before investing. To obtain a Prospectus that contains this and other information about the Funds, please click here for more information, email info@midanacapital.com or call+1(480)-439-2851. Please read the Prospectus carefully before investing.

Stocks will fluctuate in response to factors that may affect a single company, industry, sector, country, region or the market as a whole and may perform worse than the market. Foreign securities are subject to additional risks such as currency fluctuations, regional economic or political conditions, differences in accounting methods, and other unique risks compared to investing in securities of U.S. issuers. Bonds are subject to risks including interest rate, credit, and inflation. A sustainable investment strategy which incorporates environmental, social and governance criteria may result in lower or higher returns than an investment strategy that does not include such criteria.

This information has been prepared from sources believed to be reliable. The views expressed are as of the date of this writing and are those of the Advisor to the Funds.

The MIDANA CAPITAL Funds are distributed by UMB Distribution Services, LLC. 335 N Wilmot Rd, Tucson, Az 85711. 2/19