Tag: Impact Investing

Benefits and Challenges of Local Food Production

According to the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s 2023 Agricultural Overview, there are approximately 7,600 farms in Maine, mostly diversified, with nearly half of those farms (47%) working less than 50 acres. Value-added producers are also smaller scale, with a statewide average of 21 employees per business.

The diverse nature and small size of Maine’s food ecosystem reduces environmental impact and concentration risk. But these same qualities, especially in the low-density geographically remote areas that make up much of rural Maine, make it more difficult to coordinate transportation, processing, and distribution.

Filling these infrastructure gaps can mean the difference between a thriving local food system and one at risk of collapse. Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), an economic development nonprofit and Community Development Financial Institution based in midcoast Maine, has been focused on building Maine’s food system infrastructure for decades through provision of capital and entrepreneurial support for businesses in the food system, as well as through policy for increased state and federal government investment. 

How the Sausage is Made

Meat processing is a highly concentrated business in the United States, with the four largest firms in the country handling 85 percent of all steer and heifer purchases and 67 percent of all hog purchases¹. This can make it hard to find a processor taking new clients, let alone one who will process a smaller number of animals. In Maine, custom processing facilities (non-USDA or state-inspected) are booked six-months to a year in advance. The wait is even longer for inspected facilities or specialty processing like organic or Halal.

Short Creek Farm was started by high school friends Jeff Backer and Dave Viola in 2015. After college, they found their way into farming and artisanal meat processing, respectively, and quickly saw an opportunity to bring their skills together to build a business processing pork into sausage, bacon, pork cuts and salamis.

Initially, Short Creek focused on processing their own livestock, but as sales expanded beyond farmer’s market scale into wholesale, they began to purchase pork from other responsibly managed small farms. Their growth also necessitated a more robust production capacity. CEI, alongside the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, invested in the start-up of a USDA-inspected facility in Kennebunk, Maine in 2021, which gave Short Creek Meats, as the new facility is called, the ability to offer co-packing services.

Building a new meat-processing facility is an expensive endeavor with a slow return on investment. To meet health and safety requirements, new facilities must use specialized equipment and install specific types of materials, temperature-controls, and rail systems throughout the building. Furthermore, like many agricultural businesses, meat processors face a disconnect in the timing of their business’s cash flow, in that they generate significant upfront costs that cannot be recouped until the end of the growing/processing season several months later. This disconnect, combined with the high startup costs make finding long-term, affordable capital key.

In 2024, CEI was able to consolidate and refinance Short Creek Meats existing lines of credit and loan in a new, less expensive line of credit with funds from various sources, including the USDA Meat and Poultry Intermediary Lending Program. This financing package provides the company with additional working capital and provides a low-cost solution that will create $98k in annual savings, providing much needed flexibility as they look to further expand.

While it’s true that data on certain industrial meat production shows contributions to climate emissions, we see meeting demand for meat through local food sources as an investible alternative, one that reduces the carbon footprint from a meat-based diet through reduced transportation emissions and shortening the wait times until animals are processed, which means fewer direct emissions from the animals and from the feed required to maintain them. Smaller farms with corresponding small herd/flock sizes are also more likely to be raised in conditions that retain/sequester carbon in the soil and have more opportunities to manage waste in ways that reduce manure-based emissions.

Today, Short Creek Farm products are carried in specialty stores across the US, as well as at Hannaford Supermarkets in Maine. Last year, Short Creek processed 102,000 pounds of pork under their own label which was sourced from Short Creek’s own farm as well as two other New England farms. Additionally, they co-packed 90,000 pounds of pork for 14 farms across Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, providing a much-needed processing outlet in the region

To Market, To Market  

For farmers, or local food producers like Short Creek Meats, the challenge is not coming up with a quality product, it’s getting that product to customers.

Farm stands, farmer’s markets, community-support agriculture (CSA) subscriptions and other direct models can work for both farms and value-add producers but is limited in scale and geography. For businesses that want to grow, how do they do they take the next step and get into the produce aisle or the shelves of grocery stores? How do we make it easier for consumers to buy local?

Grocery shelf space is perhaps the most competitive real estate market there is. Profit margins in the grocery store industry are notoriously thin, and the industry is reluctant to use expensive retail space as a product testing ground, particularly when 70-80 percent of new grocery store products fail ². Instead, store owners pass some of that risk onto producers via “slotting” or “shelving” fees. In 2015, Goldman Sachs says consumer goods companies paid more than $200 billion to retailers in placement fees.³

For this reason, while it might be tempting to aim directly at distribution via the large national or regional chains – it’s often not best strategic or financial decision for a business. Slotting fees may be much lower, or nonexistent, at local or specialty markets and can help a business build a customer base and sales story that makes them more attractive to larger stores in the future. Specialty and small-locally owned markets are key piece of an economically sustainable local food system.

Business owners Sarah Morneault and Lindsey Levesque, co-owners of Tiller & Rye, are passionate about increasing the demand for local food. Located in Brewer within Maine’s second largest metropolitan area in the state, Tiller & Rye was founded on the idea of offering high quality products and building relationships with the producers, farmers, and craftsmen who make them. To turn their idea into a business, Morneault and Levesque turned to the Maine Small Business Development center hosted at CEI, where a certified business advisor helped them create a business plan and consider financing options.

As a start-up with the tight profit margins typical of retail groceries, finding a lender was challenging, even as the town of Brewer contributed a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant to the development. Seeing the potential of a local food sales hub in the Bangor/Brewer region, CEI provided a startup loan for inventory, fixtures and equipment and later provided additional financing when the business needed to make improvements to the electrical system in the store.

“Compared to national chains, local businesses like ours have a smaller carbon footprint and bring substantially more money to their community,” says Tiller & Rye co-owner Sarah Morneault.

“We hope that with every dollar spent at Tiller and Rye, it is used to uphold the often-lost connection between farmer and eater, make it easier for the next entrepreneur to start a business, help make the air cleaner, the world fairer, and our bodies healthier.”

Since opening in 2015, the business has helped customers connect with locally farmed and produced goods, not just with shelf space, but with tastings, demonstrations, and events. Currently, the store hosts a roster of products from 350 Maine-based farms and producers and was named the Maine Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year for 2024 by SBA.

Article by Leah Batt and Bradley Russell, Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI)

 Leah Batt is the Director of Marketing & Communications at Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), a Maine-based community development financial institution with a mission to build just, vibrant and climate-resilient futures for people and communities in Maine and rural regions by integrating finance, business expertise and policy solutions in ways that make the economy work more equitably.

 Bradley Russell is the Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Program Director at Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), where she works to grow the resilience and profitability of Maine and regional agricultural and food businesses while supporting sustainable agriculture production, processing, marketing, and retail systems helping create access to safe, affordable locally produced foods, especially among low-income communities.

  Footnotes:

 [1] USDA ERS – Concentration in U.S. Meatpacking Industry and How It Affects Competition and Cattle Prices

 [2] How To Prepare For Slotting Fees And Effectively Promote Your Product With A Retailer (forbes.com)

 [3] How Grocery Shelves Get Stacked : The Indicator from Planet Money : NPR

Frey Vineyards started as a commitment to organic agriculture and winemaking when there was none. In 1980, young sweethearts Katrina and Jonathan Frey made their first barrel of wine. They both had become organic farmers under Alan Chadwick’s tutelage. Although they had respectively grown up in gardening families, after they studied under the charismatic Shakespearean teacher, together they embarked on their enterprise: founding America’s first organic winery. With the support of Jonathan’s brother Matthew, they built the first winery, became certified organic, and started fermenting Frey wine. There weren’t any other organic wineries at the time, and organics hadn’t caught the favor that it currently enjoys.Surrounded by a hilly nature reserve in Northern California’s Mendocino County, the Frey Ranch started much earlier when doctors Paul and Beba Frey settled and raised their twelve children. Each of the Frey siblings took an interest in farming after their mother, Beba, passed on her desire from her youth spent in upstate New York growing food each summer. Since they were living on the Frey Ranch, there was a personal interest in supporting organics for the health of their community and their children (and now their grandchildren). Four generations of Freys now live in the areas surrounding the old winery site and vineyards.Over the years, several of the Freys joined the Frey Vineyards team. Paul (Junior) has become internationally renowned as a no-sulfites-added winemaker. Luke Frey has been awarded similarly for his advancement in biodynamic agriculture. Tamara Frey has a successful career creating delicious meals with local, organic, and sustainable ingredients. Together, they made a winery that focused on more than just grapes. Nathaniel Frey’s incredible photography skill lent itself well to winery promotion. Other siblings with business acumen joined the board, and others still used their engineering skills to build the winery infrastructure further.

In the four decades since Frey Vineyards started, the family has been pushing the envelope on ecological practices to further their family enterprise. In the past, the family created a sustainable food system on the ranch, providing dairy products (with milk coming from an in-house herd of goats and cows), sourdough bread (from biodynamic grains grown between the vineyard rows and milled on site), grapeseed oil (pressed from organic grape seeds leftover from winemaking), locally grown olives (from an orchard planted by the family in between the Cabernet and Zinfandel rows on the home ranch), and locally produced meat (from animals grazed in the vineyards) for the winery employees. However, in 2017, a wildfire destroyed the family homes and most of the infrastructure on the Frey Ranch.

February 28, 2024 – Before organic agriculture was popular, there was a family of farmers who wanted to change the world. They started America’s first organic winery and they’ve set the standard in organic wine production since 1980! These old photos, in order of appearance, are: Beba Frey as a young woman working on a farm in upstate New York, a trio of young Freys (Caroline, Eliza, and Daniel) on the ranch, Katrina and Johnathan Frey in their garden, Beba Frey working on the farm, old grape harvesting boxes in the vineyards, a Frey family harvest, and a car parked in front of the original winery building.

Since then, the rebuilding efforts have been focused on making the new winery as green as possible. Frey Vineyards has rolled out every environmental stop for a state-of-the-art winemaking facility. As America’s first organic winery, Frey Vineyards has been pursuing the most ecologically sound business practices since its inception. With the rebuild, Frey has been afforded an opportunity to start over, crafting things anew with the latest and greatest ecological technologies available. Organic winemaking, although a minority market, has been steadily increasing since Frey started; there are now lots of competitors in the market looking to capitalize on this organic niche. The youngest consumers of wine (in the 20-30-year-old age group) have the highest interest in choosing an organic product for reasons of personal and environmental health. 

Frey Vineyards is not just about organic wine; it’s an environmental establishment committed to producing a “pure” product. The new site wastewater treatment employs a small army of earthworms who do an amazing job of composting the wine wastewater so that it can be used as fertilizer for the grapes once more. This “BioFiltro” system, a testament to our commitment to innovation, was successfully installed at the new winery site to be able to transform the wastewater efficiently in a couple of hours. As of early 2024, BioFiltro claims that over 49,000,000,000 gallons of wastewater have been regenerated for use in agriculture by their systems worldwide. BioFiltro is a carbon-neutral company with a patented filtration system that uses the humble but effective earthworm.

Recently, Frey brought on two Monarch electric tractors to add to the vineyard vehicle fleet. These 100 percent electric tractors can run on solar. Over the holidays last year, the Frey family used one of the monarch tractors to light a completely solar-powered Christmas tree in a living redwood tree on the Frey Ranch. Our winemaker Paul got about a mile of lights strung up at the edge of a redwood tree grove. With the help of a surveyor friend, they triangulated the tree’s height and found that it was 192 feet tall! Then, with a drone, they took row after row of lights to the top. Miraculously, the LED lights display only used around 80 watts of power, and the entire setup ran on solar energy from one of our solar-powered Monarch tractors. We believe Paul has set a record for the world’s tallest living and decorated Christmas tree! A large solar array atop the winery warehouse is also in the works to replace the solar array that was destroyed during the fire.

Frey Vineyards focuses on maintaining both hedgerows and gardens for the surrounding ecosystem. The Biodynamic wine certification requires that 10 percent of a farm be reserved for native plant habitat. In addition to more than meeting that requirement with our surrounding nature reserve (spanning 100s of acres), our garden team has been adding a native plant sanctuary to the new winery development. The focus on California natives directly supports pollinators in the ecosystem, including an array of milkweeds planted to foster a thriving community of monarch butterflies on their migration routes. These biodiversity measures also bolster better yields for the grape harvest, provide more nutrient value to the wine grapes grown, and increase our market value. That’s good, green business!

Article by Molly Frey is the Social Media Coordinator at Frey Vineyards. She loves telling the story of Frey Vineyards, our love of land stewardship, and organic winemaking. For the last 16 years, she tended to a herd of goats on the Frey Ranch. Her debut novel, “Wildfire Weeds,” explores the themes of wildfire ecology, sustainability, and climate change within the setting of a pot farm in Northern California. In response to the global pandemic and the need for more good news about how humans can thrive, she has created a podcast called “The Positive Fantastic.”

 Molly is a mom to a wonderful teenage son in a small town in Mendocino County, where she enjoys gardening, writing, and storytelling through social media.

The challenge is feeding 8.1 billion people within Earth’s planetary boundaries.

Industrial agriculture practices emphasize maximizing yield and include carbon intensive processes and chemical fertilizers. These approaches, efficient though they may be, deplete the soil health and reduce biodiversity. The industry is also exploitative to workers and farmers, failing to provide economic sustainability and well-being. The food and agriculture industry contributes one third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the agricultural supply chain has become increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including changing patterns of drought, precipitation, and extreme heat. A new approach to food production and agriculture is needed.  

As investors, we have leverage points that we can influence to encourage the move away from the extractive and exploitative status quo, which has significant negative externalities, and transition to a more resilient system that can thrive over the long term.

In 2018, we began a journey at Domini in adopting a system-level approach to our investments. To start, we focused on one system in particular: Forests. This included addressing many interconnected questions about the optimal uses of land in society. When we first began looking at the drivers of global deforestation, it is clear that much of the forest destruction takes place when land is cleared for agriculture. And through our efforts to protect forests and biodiversity, we have worked with companies, investor collaborations, and policy makers to drive change. Over the past six years, we have seen indicators of progress in investors’ and companies’ increased awareness, an evolving regulatory environment that mandates responsible practices, and stronger regulatory enforcement of forest protection laws.

There are similarities with this work and how we are looking for systemic improvements in industrial agriculture. We believe a move away from “value extraction” to “value creation” can happen when we strike the right balance among the competing environmental and social forces. This would be resilient for the long term, support robust thriving local economies and the wellbeing and just payment of farmers and workers, while also eliminating food insecurity and ensuring affordability. In short, the existing business model needs to change.

Business Model Transition for Value Creation

There is an alternative solution that is directly addressing these challenges. Regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach designed for farmers to work in harmony with nature, while simultaneously maintaining and improving livelihoods. Regenerative agriculture practices, like using cover crops, diverse crop plantings and rotation, no-till farming, reducing pesticide use in favor of integrated pest management, and conserving water, are ways to help regenerate and repair the soil and ecosystems. These practices have the potential to deliver different types of benefits–for improved climate mitigation, increased resilience of crops to water stress or long-term productivity and soil health, and lower input costs or improved yields for farmers. This more holistic approach to agriculture is garnering a lot of enthusiasm and has been the focus of a growing number of corporate commitments. Currently 15 percent of global farmland is estimated to be cultivated using regenerative practices, so a lot more uptake is needed. These are often traditional methods familiar to farmers globally, but smallholder farmers in particular have been incentivized, whether through subsidies or larger players in the food system, to grow food in ways that are dependent on chemicals which lead to degraded soil health.

Feeding our Planet with Regenerative Agriculture  

Proponents of industrial agriculture argue that theirs is the only way to feed the world. To address these concerns, there is a need for global, multi-stakeholder examination of whether regenerative methods will result in a substantial reduction in yields or if they can provide adequate food security, especially in the face of expected global population growth. Society is confronted with a choice to continue a system that the planet cannot sustain or to fully embrace regenerative agriculture and evaluate its potential to function effectively at scale.

The possibility of the eventual collapse of the current model is becoming clearer, with its mounting number of externalities and inefficiencies. In addition to the way we grow food, there are other elements of the current system that contribute to inadequately addressing food security and nutrition. This includes massive amounts of upstream and downstream food waste, land devoted to producing feed for animal agriculture, ethanol production, which currently accounts for 30 percent of U.S. corn, and the burning of biomass for energy. There are also inequities and inefficiencies in distribution that are a barrier to getting food to people who need it. Today’s system depends on significant government subsidies that create price distortions in order to be economic and meet global food needs. It is now time for things to change.

Just Transitions for Farmers and Farmworkers

The transition to a “value creation business model” must place at its center the farmers and farmworkers who are essential for its success, as well as for our long-term food security. Industrial agricultural models have exploited farmers and farmworkers, especially Black, People of Color, and Indigenous Peoples, and reinforce systemic power imbalances.

The way to a more resilient and just system must be led by farmers and address the ways that the current system is failing them. Otherwise, it risks meeting resistance. The recent mobilization of farmers in Europe around climate action demonstrates how essential a just transition strategy is. Farmers operate in often economically precarious circumstances. But they are also the closest to the land and have the knowledge and practices to improve their land and output’s resilience. They also understand the solutions needed to provide more economic security. For a more just transition, industry and farmers should develop partnerships to collaborate to align interests–whether around technical training, financing of investments in new equipment, determining the data and tools needed to evaluate the outcomes of regenerative agriculture practices, or incentivizing farmers’ participation in regenerative agriculture programs. While it may entail upfront costs, over the long-term, regenerative agriculture can increase farmer profitability.

Farmers see the daily changes to their farms from climate change. And farmworkers are already facing heightened climate related risks, including heat related illness and death, exhaustion and heat stress, or increased pesticide exposure. In 2030, the sector may account for 60 percent of global work hours lost to heat stress, and it will only become more unbearable for workers as temperatures continue to rise. Farmworkers often face an intersecting and reinforcing set of vulnerabilities, related to racial and gender discrimination or class. They also lack fundamental labor protections including the right to unionize, are exposed to wage theft, forced labor and poor working conditions – and there are currently no federal standards for heat stress protections. Moreover, basic goods and adequate infrastructure are often lacking in their communities. Yet, farmworkers are essential for our food supply. As practices to improve on-farm resilience through regenerative models are adopted, investors should encourage companies to adopt a farmer and worker-centered just transition to address the risks of agriculture today, while adapting for the future.

How Hopeful Should We Be About Regenerative Ag?

Although regenerative agricultural practices present attractive opportunities and could play a significant role in mitigating climate change, obstacles and challenges remain. First, achieving a transition to regenerative agriculture can take years. Second, there is a lack of standardization of what regenerative agriculture entails and what outcomes can be expected. Third, the supply chains for food producers are often long and deep and can be difficult to mobilize. Fourth, moving to regenerative agriculture may entail transition costs or initial decreases in yield. All of this presents challenges for companies that are balancing short-term financial pressures with investment in long-term resilience. Investors can encourage the transition, while monitoring the signals which demonstrate progress. 

For investors to support the adoption of regenerative agriculture programs, it will be important to be clear on the definitions companies use about regenerative agriculture, the practices deployed, outcomes achieved, and how to measure progress, in order to put these commitments in context and know how hopeful we should be about their potential. For example, it is common for a company to disclose a total amount of acreage that is managed using regenerative agriculture, without disclosing which regenerative practices are used or what outcomes are achieved. Investors value consistent, comparable information, or initiatives that can be scaled across value chains. But this is understandably challenging, as regenerative agriculture entails identifying farm or crop specific practices. Investors will need to work with companies to find the right indicators or level of disclosure about these initiatives, seeking to find a balance that does not put a heavy data collection or reporting burden on farmers, but gives enough information to understand the scope and impact of these programs. Companies can then provide relevant disclosure to provide accountability, demonstrate continuous learning, and give assurance of progress toward more regenerative, and resilient farming, and how these programs are contributing to a company’s climate or biodiversity strategy.

A regenerative approach is demonstrably better for our planet and has long-term benefits for investors. It can improve the ability of soil to withstand drought and floods, which are more likely to increase with severe weather events or make crops less prone to infestation from pests by increasing biodiversity. While our current financial models do not account for these intangible systemic benefits in pricing, their value is undeniable. So, at Domini we recognize we will be well-served to find ways to understand and prioritize them through our engagements, expectations, and decision-making, and hope we will continue to collaborate with stakeholders, policy makers, and other investors in this work.

Changing a sector’s business model can be extremely challenging. But a few sectors, like energy and transportation, already have transitions underway as they adapt to address climate change. As investors, we can seek a value creation model, that strikes a balance between the short-term pressures of efficiency and productivity with the long-term benefits of resilience and climate mitigation, while meeting the need for food security and the well-being of farmers. We can invest in this model for the long-term and offer encouragement through the transition period, to allocate capital to optimal uses of land that contribute to serving a collective societal benefit.

Article by Mary Beth Gallagher, the Director of Engagement at Domini Impact Investments LLC. Ms. Gallagher, an attorney and has been advancing social justice and human rights issues for most of her professional career.

 Ms. Gallagher is responsible for leading Domini’s engagement efforts with portfolio companies, broader stakeholder groups and policy makers, as well as developing initiatives and campaigns in areas such as human rights, climate change mitigation, deforestation, health, and racial justice. 

In Domini’s work to advance ecological sustainability, Ms. Gallagher encourages companies to adopt policies and practices that advance the low-carbon transition, also in alignment with the needs of workers and community stakeholders. Forests are an important aspect of the discussion on climate resilience. Domini’s forest project is committed to understanding the drivers of forest destruction, biodiversity loss, and the impacts on the rights of Indigenous peoples, and addressing this through our investment decisions, and engagement efforts, to further forest value creators. Ms. Gallagher represents Domini on the Finance for Biodiversity Foundation Advisory Board and the Launching Investor Group for Nature Action 100. 

Prior to joining Domini in 2021, she was the Executive Director of a non-profit organization representing institutional investors in stewardship and shareholder advocacy. Ms. Gallagher holds a B.S. in environmental science from Boston College and a J.D. from the Washington College of Law at American University. She is a Member of the New York Bar, admitted in 2009. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa.

 Disclosure

Before investing, consider each Fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Contact us at 1.800.582.6757 for a prospectus containing this and other important information. Read it carefully.

An investment in the Domini Funds is not a bank deposit, is not insured, and is subject to certain risks, including loss of principal. An investment in the Domini Impact Equity Fund is subject to certain risks, including impact investing, portfolio management, information, market, mid- to large-cap companies, and small-cap companies’ risks. An investment in the Domini International Opportunities Fund is subject to certain risks, including foreign investing, geographic focus, country, currency, impact investing, portfolio management, and information risks. An investment in the Domini Sustainable Solutions Fund is subject to certain risks, including sustainable investing, portfolio management, information, market, mid- to large-cap companies, and small-cap companies’ risks. An investment in the Domini Impact International Equity Fund is subject to certain risks, including foreign investing and emerging markets, geographic focus, country, currency, impact investing, portfolio management, and quantitative investment approach risks. Investing internationally involves special risks, such as currency fluctuations, social and economic instability, differing securities regulations and accounting standards, limited public information, possible changes in taxation, and periods of illiquidity. These risks may be heightened in connection with investments in emerging market countries. An investment in the Domini Impact Bond Fund is subject to certain risks including impact investing, portfolio management, style, information, market, interest rate, and credit risks.

The Adviser’s evaluation of environmental and social factors in its investment selections and the timing of the Subadviser’s implementation of the Adviser’s investment selections will affect the Fund’s exposure to certain issuers, industries, sectors, regions, and countries and may impact the relative financial performance of the Fund depending on whether such investments are in or out of favor. The value of your investment may decrease if the Adviser’s or Subadviser’s judgment about Fund investments does not produce the desired results. There is a risk that information used by the Adviser to evaluate environmental and social factors, may not be readily available or complete, which could negatively impact the Adviser’s ability to evaluate such factors and Fund performance. 

The information presented is believed to be factual and up to date, but Domini does not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgement of the author/presenter as of the date of publication and are subject to change and do not constitute investment advice.

The Domini Funds are only offered for sale in the United States. DSIL Investment Services LLC, Distributor, Member FINRA. Domini Impact Investments LLC is the Funds’ Adviser. The Funds are subadvised by unaffiliated entities. The Domini Funds are only offered for sale in the United States. DSIL Investment Services LLC, Distributor, Member FINRA. Domini Impact Investments LLC is the Funds’ Adviser. The Funds are subadvised by unaffiliated entities. 4/24