Monday, February 11, 2008

There are ethical funds and there are ............errrr .... ethical funds

This from the Guardian highlights a few little nuances that may surprise you if you are lucky enough to have a few spare quid and choose to invest in one of the so called 'ethical funds'.

Reading it made me smile. There are obviously rather varying shades of ethical just as there are varying shades of green.

So, if you thought that your ethical fund investment was directly helping to tackle climate change, you just may have to reconsider having read this.

It's just not easy being green, or ethical, is it?

2 comments:

Ron Robins said...

You are right, it's not easy to be green. What is ethical or green -- is up to the individual to decide. However, I believe that if we all invest according to our personal ethics, then we will all end-up better-off. Investors need to be very clear with their investment advisors about how they want their money invested!

Incidentally, I've been following ethical investing for about forty years. Readers might like to know that I cover the latest global ethical investing news at www.investingforthesoul.com

Best wishes, Ron Robins

Emma said...

Welcome Ron.

As with ... too much... it is the few negatives who tend to colour the many positives trying to make a real difference.

Sadly my investing has been a tad more localised this last decade (in Junkk.com and now RE:tie... they will pay off one day... I pray!), but should I ever get back into the happy position of having some extra to splash about on dotage and family I will most certainly look forward to seeing what sage advice guys like you have to offer on doing it properly and in the right direction(s).

Actually, as I seem in the thick of dealing with VCs and BAs at the moment, and not too many so far that worried about the planet aspects of making gold from green, it may well be worth doing so now in case some might pop up who might help in the other direction! At least with some business guys to point my way to hook up with to add a necesssary fiscal balance to my overly creative soul.

I head to your URL now!