If you do you are part of a growing number of people who exercise ethical choices when spending their money. As we live in a capitalist society using your spending power to change the world is a pretty good long term strategy, so good on you.
But I have to ask do you also make ethical choices with your investments and your pension? Often it’s something people don’t give a second thought, but the investments you make can have a significant ethical undercurrent if you so desire.
When I run through a client’s information with them as part of my advice process, I always ask ‘Do you have any religious or ethical requirements of your investment?’ the vast majority of people reply no. I’m quite interested in ethical investing on a personal level but it is certainly not for me to push my beliefs on to a client – but I think it is fair enough to talk about them in a blog post!
If you looked at the companies that your pension or investment fund have bought in to with your money would you be happy? According to a leading fund research tool, the most popular investment fund in the last year (based on the number of times their fact sheets have been viewed) is the Invesco Perpetual High-Income fund, a glance at the top 10 companies shows, 2 tobacco companies, 3 pharmaceutical companies, 2 companies involved in weapons manufacture, a telecoms company, a business admin company and a household chemical manufacturer.
It makes you think about how your money is being used, there are a lot of different ways of investing ‘ethically’ if you would like to talk about the ethics of your investments just drop me a line.