Environmental Investments - recommendations wanted 13 October 2005 at 5:26PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in ISAs & Tax-free Savings 4 replies 713 views

hazard68

Hi
I'd like to invest in a green (i.e. environmental) isa / stocks etc. Anyone got any recommendations?

dunstonh

Cant do that I'm afraid. Fund recommendations would be in breach of FSA and board rules.

cheerfulcat

hazard68 wrote:

Hi
I'd like to invest in a green (i.e. environmental) isa / stocks etc. Anyone got any recommendations?

Hi,

It's hard to suggest anything without knowing what your personal attitude is. Rolls Royce have an association with weapons; Scottish and Newcastle make beer; William Hill allows people to gamble; Tesco sold whale meat in their Japanese shops. Oil companies, miners, electricity generators can be bad for the environment. It all depends on your own stance whether you would consider these companies unsuitable for an ethical investor. Ethical funds are a real poser from that point of view; I have found that none of them really cater for *personal* preference.

Most companies which care about such things have a fairly clear ethical stance - Body Shop, for example. Or you could look for companies which are unlikely to create serious ethical dilemmas for you. The FTSE4Good index comprises companies considered " socially responsible "; that could be a starting point. Here's a link

http://www.ftse.com/ftse4good/sri.jsp

HTH

Cheerfulcat

ps It is actually very difficult to build a reasonably sized portfolio with just companies which fit strict ethical criteria; you may find that you have to stretch a point or two :-(

BenL

The Ecology Building Society might be of use.

https://www.ecology.co.uk

They are based across the valley from where I live and have a cool head office.

Its got a straw bale meeting room outside in the grounds


Ben

carnet

There are also several Ethical and/or Ecological UT/OEICS, some of which are run by very able managers eg. Ted Scott, with performance more or less comparable with their unconstrained peers.