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News Articles

Pension giant executive’s sky-high pay package angers clients and Brazilian land grab vict...
As the Movement for Black Lives demands alternatives to racist systems in our country, communities of color around the world press on in their struggles for land and self-determination. Last fall, Afr...
As the Amazon Burns, Students Call on Harvard To Divest from Farmland Holdings
As the Amazon rainforest continues to burn, members of Divest Harvard — a student group demanding the University divest from fossil fuels — are renewing their calls on Harvard to withdraw its holdings...
Harvard Land Ownership in Brazil Scrutinized in Title Dispute
Another Harvard University farmland investment in Brazil may go awry. The prosecutor’s office in the state of Bahia said it’s reviewing allegations that a company linked to Harvard’s endowment isn’...
Harvard’s Foreign Farmland Investment Mess
Fourteen years ago, a Brazilian farmer named Ruthardo Grun says he was terrorized by armed thugs who shot at him, burned down his shack, and chased him from land he was preparing to farm. Little did h...
Harvard Spent $100 Million on Vineyards. Now It's Fighting With the Neighbors
Four years ago, Harvard University bought an old cattle ranch in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains. On an arid expanse north of Santa Barbara, California, the school’s endowment set out to...
Harvard Was ‘Freaking Out’: How a $270 Million Brazil Bet Tanked
Biggest endowment struggled to unload a troubled investment. Colin Butterfield was frantic. The Harvard University endowment executive wanted to unload a disastrous $270 million investment in Brazili...
TIAA Clients And Activists To Deliver 100,000 Petitions To Pension Fund In NYC
Activists and clients tell TIAA to stop investments linked to deforestation and displacement of local farmers NEW YORK, NY – Today, a coalition of environmental, human rights and family farm organi...
The Great Land Robbery
The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms I. Wiped Out “you ever chop before?” Willena Scott-White was testing me. I sat with her in the cab of a Chevy Sil...
Environmental Defenders—Often Fighting Agribusiness—Are Being Violently Silenced Around th...
A new report details how agribusiness—especially soy, sugar, palm oil, and beef production—was the second deadliest sector for people standing up for the environment and their lands. BY GRETA MORANEN...
How TIAA Funds Environmental Disaster in Latin America
Pension fund giant TIAA is investing its clients’ funds in farmland and agribusinesses tied to environmental and human rights abuses in Latin America. January 6, 2017   Indigenous com...
Brazil campaigners hail court decision canceling large land deal
Wednesday, 20 July 2016  RIO DE JANEIRO, July 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Campaigners in Brazil on Wednesday hailed a court decision to cancel a major land acquisition deal because investors ha...
TIAA has not answered our report’s allegations
Sir, Gregory Meyer’s article on pension funds investing in farmland (March 2) brings much needed attention to a critical issue. While we welcome the article’s mention of our report on TIAA’s farmland ...
TIAA-CREF, U.S. Investment Giant, Accused of Land Grabs in Brazil
Nov. 16, 2015 SÃO PAULO, Brazil — As an American investment giant that manages the retirement savings of millions of university administrators, public school teachers and others, TI...
NGO report attacks pension fund 'land-grab' in Brazil
19/11/15   Pension providers including Sweden’s AP2, Canada’s Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and TIAA-CREF have been heavily criticised in a report claiming their Brazilian farmland investme...
US Pension Fund TIAA-CREF Involved In Brazil Land Grabs
17/11/15 US. educator pension fund TIAA-CREF has promulgated a reputation of upholding socially responsible values, and even goes as far as highlighting its role in drafting UN principles of transpar...
TIAA-CREF Bought Brazilian Farmland From Notorious Land Grabber, Report Says
November 17, 2015 The U.S. investment company TIAA-CREF has amassed vast holdings of Brazilian farmland through a joint venture that has done business with one of the country's most notorious "land g...
This Socially Responsible Pension Fund Invested in Brazilian Farms Seized by Violent Land ...
An American investment giant that manages multi-billion-dollar pension funds in the United States, Canada, and Sweden faces allegations that it has circumvented Brazilian laws on foreign acquisition o...
American Financial Services Giant Attacked for Role in Brazilian Land Grab
Its long acronym, TIAA-CREF, stands for what sounds like a lofty purpose: Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund. Based in New York with origins dating back to t...
Palm Oil Giant Golden Agri-Resources Removed from Dow Jones Sustainability Index after Bri...
February 5, 2019 Arrest of company executives tops a long list of abuses WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Dow Jones Sustainability Index has removed the world’s second largest palm oil company, Golden Agri-Re...
Press Advisory: Senate Briefing on Private Investment as Driver of Deforestation and Clima...
August 31, 2018 WASHINGTON – With growing concern over the impacts of climate change and related financial risks to U.S. investors, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Friends of the Earth and Amazon Watch...
Palm Oil Company Golden Veroleum Liberia’s Departs from RSPO, Raising Red Flags for Invest...
July 24, 2018 Years of allegations of deforestation, land grabbing and human rights violations catch up with palm oil company WASHINGTON, D.C. – Golden Veroleum Liberia (GVL), a palm oil company ope...
CalPERS Investment Policy a Victory for People and the Planet
July 12, 2018 Years-long campaign by Friends of the Earth pushes agency to prioritize human rights, environmental protection in its new investment policy SAN FRANCISCO – The California Public Employ...
Court rules that Brazilian businessman who sold lands to TIAA-CREF acquired lands illegall...
State court rules that Brazilian businessman who sold lands to US pension fund giant TIAA-CREF acquired lands illegally A Brazilian businessman involved in the acquisition of farmland by US, Canadian...

BLOG POSTS

Brazilian Government Finds that TIAA and Harvard Violated Law in Acquiring Half a Million ...
The companies face the potential loss of farmland worth as much as $1 billion raising questions about their activity in other countries and their claims to social responsibility FOR IMMEDIATE RELEAS...
Statement on Farmland Speculation for International Biodiversity Day 2020
May 19, 2020 To mark this year’s International Biodiversity Day, May 22, we call upon participants in investment funds, pension funds and retirement plans to demand an end to speculation with farml...
When Pensions Buy Plantations: TIAA and other Wall Street Firms are Amassing Farmland in M...
August 28, 2019 The cover story of this month’s The Atlantic magazine is a must-read article by Vann Newkirk titled “The Great Land Robbery: The shameful story of how 1 million black families have be...
Investing in a better future: how TIAA has it all wrong
August 6, 2019 Seventeen years ago, ActionAid selected the financial services company TIAA to manage our staff’s retirement funds because we believed them to be a responsible investor. However, we ha...
Indigenous and Community Land Rights Under Attack in Area Where Pensions Giant TIAA Is Ama...
May 5, 2017 On Sunday, April 30, local ranchers in Maranhão, Brazil, attacked the indigenous Gamela community, leaving 13 wounded. Several people were taken to a hospital, some with severe machete an...
104,481 and Counting: Calling on TIAA to Stop Investing in Land Grabs
April 21, 2017 Imagine for a moment that you’re in New York City on a breezy afternoon. You’re hurrying down the street to grab lunch, when you suddenly come across a cardboard bulldozer, a group of ...
Pension Funds Are Trying to Control Our Food Supply – with Our Money
April 20, 2017 Right now, some of the world’s biggest financial firms are meeting to discuss how to turn farming into a financial product. Farmland, in particular, has been described as being like “g...
Is Your Pension Fund Grabbing Farmland and Violating People’s Rights?
October 31, 2016 Biofuels have a new booster: your pension and retirement fund. Retirement funds are buying millions of acres of farmland in the United States, Brazil, Australia, and elsewhere, citin...
I’m Alarmed at How TIAA Is Investing My Retirement Funds
November 14, 2016 As a person whose work-life as a teacher and as a public policy analyst has been grounded in anthropology, I am very alarmed at the way in which my retirement funds are being used b...
World Bank Program Forcing Local Communities Off Their Land
March 22, 2018 The current World Bank’s land titling program in northeastern Brazil is a license for land grabbing. (Washington D.C. March 21, 2018) The World Bank is financing a land titling progra...
Activists and clients tell TIAA to stop investments linked to deforestation and displaceme...
April 21, 2017 NEW YORK, NY – On Thursday a coalition of environmental, human rights and family farm organizations delivered a letter with more than 100,000 signatures to pension fund management comp...
Part 2: TIAA’s farms up close
Champaign County is the home of the University of Illinois and some of the richest farmland in the world. It is also home to Westchester Farm Services, the TIAA subsidiary that manages most of their f...
Part 1: TIAA’s “sustainability reports” can’t paper over the impacts of land grabbing
With a client base surpassing 5 million people, TIAA is one of the largest retirement funds in the world. What most of us don’t realize is that TIAA is also the largest owner of farmland in the world ...
Stopping Colleges’ Land Grabs: Farmers and Faculties Unite
Grassroots International is supporting our partner The Social Network for Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social) and our allies like GRAIN in a global campaign to stop violent and illegal land grabs a...
SHARE SHARE ON FACEBOOK SHARE ON TWITTER SHARE BY EMAIL TIAA Campaign Update: Momentum Bui...
Momentum continues to build in our work to demand that TIAA, the world’s largest private retirement system, implement an investment policy free of deforestation and land grabs! Over 100,000 people, in...
New Report on TIAA’s Links to Deforestation and Land Grabbing
On May 10, Friends of the Earth published their report on TIAA’s links to deforestation and land grabbing in partnership with ActionAidUSA, Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos de Brasil (Brazili...
U.S. Pension Fund TIAA Implicated in Brazilian Land Grabs
In September 2017 a delegation of 30 human rights, land, and food experts traveled around the Matopiba region of Brazil on a fact-finding mission supported by Grassroots International and ally organiz...
TIAA Tied to Deforestation and Displacement of Farmers, Environmentalists Claim in New Rep...
WASHINGTON D.C. – According to a report released today by leading environmental and social justice advocates, the investment management firm TIAA is leading a trend of speculating in land markets, whi...
Tell TIAA to Get Out of the Land Grabbing Business
Ask any family farmer and they will tell you that land is an increasingly valuable, scarce, and critical resource for their survival. Many people would also agree with our nation’s founders that wides...

 

 

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