Steven Heim has been at the forefront of three major transformative efforts to create a more just and sustainable world through investor and corporate action: working to define goals for GHG emissions reductions, safeguarding Indigenous people’s rights, and facilitating a just transition to a more sustainable future.

Steven has brought an awareness that rises beyond sector-relative thinking to highlight how industry and investors must respond to moral choices and trade-offs, evident in his longstanding and ongoing commitment to preserving the rights and cultural survival of Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples in many sectors. Steven has long advocated for free, prior, informed consent in financial decision-making (Equator Principles), worked to protect land and water from extractive industry activity and stood against demeaning portrayals of Native Americans in sports and restaurant chains.

Since 2007, Steven’s leadership with the Investors & Indigenous Peoples Working Group (IIPWG) helped secure U.S. endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; persuade the Washington NFL team to retire its racist name and logo; and amass trillions of dollars of investor support globally to ensure Indigenous Peoples rights, including the right to free, prior and informed consent are recognized and addressed in corporate policy and behavior.

Steven has a thoughtful and collaborative approach to creating long-term change in corporate practices apparent in his dialogue approach and his desire to have the right stakeholders at the table including NGOs, Indigenous Peoples, and in roundtables, other companies to contribute to shared learning.