6.24.2004 ET

(CSRwire) BETHESDA, Md. & NEW YORK - Calvert, the nation's largest family of socially responsible mutual funds, yesterday announced the launch of The Calvert Women's Principles, a comprehensive code of corporate conduct focusing on gender equality and women's empowerment. The new corporate responsibility initiative was unveiled at a New York luncheon co-hosted by Calvert's strategic partner, The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

"The Calvert Women's Principles constitute the first global code of conduct for corporations focused exclusively on empowering, advancing and investing in women worldwide," said Barbara Krumsiek, President and CEO of Calvert. "The Women's Principles will provide companies a set of goals they can aspire to and measure their progress against, while offering investors a set of tools they can use to assess corporate performance on gender equality issues."

"The Calvert Women's Principles will provide a concrete set of indicators for tracking the progress of gender justice in the corporate community," said Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of UNIFEM. "Increasing corporate business accountability with regard to gender equality is high priority for UNIFEM because it is fundamental to women's survival, options and opportunities. We are pleased to partner with Calvert in defining these unique pathways and developing their groundbreaking Women's Principles."

Joining Calvert and UNIFEM as speakers at the luncheon event were Bill Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA; Kavitas Ramdas, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women; Kathy Rodgers, President of Legal Momentum; and three representatives of the corporate community: Sandra Taylor, Senior VP for Corporate Social Responsibility at Starbucks; Pat Nathan, Sustainable Business Director at Dell; and Rosemary Kenney, Senior Project Manager for Corporate Governance at Pfizer.

The Calvert Women's Principles cover such issues as wages and benefits; health, safety and violence; discrimination in the workplace; civic and community engagement; management and governance; hiring, promotion and professional development; business and supply chain practices; and monitoring and reporting.

Calvert and UNIFEM announced their intention to work with partners in the corporate, NGO and institutional investor communities to develop strategies for persuading companies to endorse and implement Calvert's Women's Principles. Such strategies may include developing tool kits and other resources for corporations working to implement the Women's Principles; developing auditing and verification guidelines for monitoring compliance; recognizing best practices in the area of gender equality and women's empowerment; conducting research and developing performance metrics demonstrating the return on investment and the business case for gender equality; and holding briefings, symposia and conferences.

For its own part, Calvert announced that it intends to integrate the Women's Principles into its own social and environmental research and screening of companies for its investment portfolios, and also intends to issue ratings of companies based in part upon their adherence to the Women's Principles. Calvert also announced that it intends to engage corporations through dialogue and shareholder resolutions, asking them to endorse the Principles and to take concrete steps to implement them.

"As a result of gender inequities, women remain - to some degree in all parts of the globe - an untapped economic resource and an under-utilized economic asset," said Calvert's Krumsiek. "There is a strong business case and a strong economic case for gender equality. The Calvert Women's Principles recognize that women are economic actors and productive assets, and that empowering women is a key to sustainable development around the globe."

"To make a real difference, we have to transform words into actions and results," said Ms. Heyzer of UNIFEM. "Today's partnership to advance women's human rights and economic participation brings together the strengths and skills of the United Nations, the private sector and the non-governmental community. The Women's Principles released today provide a new set of tools to engage the private sector in ongoing efforts to achieve women's equality."

"Corporations can play a vital role in unleashing women's economic capacity, which has the potential to boost economies and transform societies," concluded Calvert's Krumsiek. "Our hope is that the Calvert Women's Principles will play a small part in hastening that transformation."

Calvert is the nation's largest socially responsible mutual fund firm with approximately $9.9 billion in assets under management. Calvert offers twenty-seven funds that allow individual and institutional investors to pursue a broad range of investment objectives within a single fund family. Calvert also has an extensive lineup of tax-free and taxable fixed income investments. For more information on Calvert, click on www.calvert.com.

UNIFEM is the women's fund at the United Nations, providing financial and technical assistance to innovative programs and strategies that promote women's human rights, political participation and economic security in over 100 countries around the globe. For more information on UNIFEM, click on www.unifem.org.

Calvert mutual funds are underwritten and distributed by Calvert Distributors Inc., member NASD, a subsidiary of Calvert Group. (6/03, 5012)

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