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What do Occupy Wall Street activists and a group of nuns have in common? No, I’m not trying to make a joke; they really do have something in common: the desire to promote corporate responsibility. While you may not see nuns camped out alongside Occupy Wall Street protesters, they are still out there taking on corporate executives.

 

The nuns and their holy approach to corporate responsibility were the subject of an inspirational article in the New York Times. In the article, Kevin Roose shares a story about Sister Nora Nash chatting with Goldman Sachs executives about corporate responsibility.

 

“Way up on the 41st floor, in a conference room overlooking the World Trade Center site, Sister Nora and her team from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility laid out their advice for three Goldman executives. The Wall Street bank, they said, should protect consumers, rein in executive pay, increase its transparency and remember the poor.”  Source: The New York Times

 

That’s right, Sister Nora of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia has the same requests that many in the Occupy Wall Street movement do. However, Sister Nora and the other nuns have been at this for decades. Roose’s article explains that the order first formed a corporate responsibility committee in the 1980s. That’s before some of today’s occupiers were even born.

 

In addition to Goldman Sachs, the sisters have also targeted Kroger, McDonald’s, Wells Fargo and other well-known companies. The nuns don’t stop with face-to-face meetings, though. They are also taking the fight to the executive’s own turf by buying shares of targeted companies and showing up at shareholder meetings.

 

Read more of Sister Nora’s story, Nuns Who Won’t Stop Nudging.