Views on Ethical Investing

Aegis

mark13 wrote: »

How about JPM Natural Resources.

Not entirely sure that constitutes ethical investing...

JoeCrystal

@dunstonh Sitting on 'Saving' chair here, it seems everything that is connected with Investing is always medium/high risk. Is there a thing called Low Risk in Investing, considering the potential to for your investment to lose value?

@wriggly I do rather like your take on Ethical Investing.

Aegis

JoeCrystal wrote: »

@dunstonh Sitting on 'Saving' chair here, it seems everything that is connected with Investing is always medium/high risk. Is there a thing called Low Risk in Investing, considering the potential to for your investment to lose value?

Structured products with a (partial) capital guarantee could fall into the low-medium band quite easily. Gilt funds might end up in there too, as could some corporate bond funds.

All depends on your scale though.

LongTermLurker

I've been in the Jupiter Environmental Income fund for a few years (until 07 anyway!) and I think it's done quite well since I started. It has different standards to the Ecology fund and is much lighter green. As the name suggests, it tends to invest in companies which either aim to reduce their impact on the environment or produce a product which will go some way to benefitting the environment.

Therefore, if say Shell do something to reduce their impact, or go into biofuel research, they could be included because they are improving, though they're still producing something else that pollutes.

dunstonh

@dunstonh Sitting on 'Saving' chair here, it seems everything that is connected with Investing is always medium/high risk. Is there a thing called Low Risk in Investing, considering the potential to for your investment to lose value?

Risk is not a on/off switch. There is a whole sliding scale. Regulars here will know that I often use a 1-10 scale to highlight it. It is possible to build a portfolio that fits every risk profile.

One profile may suffer a potential annual loss of 10%, another 20%, another 80%. medium/high would be closer to the 50% range. However, you need to know the scale to put the medium/high in context.

elwy

LongTermLurker wrote: »

Therefore, if say Shell do something to reduce their impact, or go into biofuel research, they could be included because they are improving, though they're still producing something else that pollutes.

That's why I gave up on ethical funds. I think wriggly has got the right idea - make money anyhow and then donate to your chosen charities.

tradetime

On the other hand, ethical funds rarely exclude financial firms, and they're currently looking the least ethical of the lot!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:Aint that the truth!

JoeCrystal

You can always buy shares in renewable energy companies like err... *trying in vain to look for anything like it on LSE* Which is more ethical & green! Of course, from what I understand, they are higher than High Risk... Ultra Risk?

Renewable Energy Holdings PLC?
Renewable Energy Generation Ltd?

iii.com pointed out the people buy them also buy Lloyds Banking Group PLC, BT Group PLC, Aviva PLC & Cookson Group PLC...

Debt_Free_Chick

My own view on "ethical" funds is that they are - by their very nature - high risk. Why? because they have a narrow spread of stocks to choose from and if a sector is falling, they have fewer choices about where to invest instead.

As a small part of what is an otherwise very diversified portfolio, they could have a place. But not for 100% of your whole investment portfolio.

Agree with all the other observations as well - what exactly is "ethical" anyway?

orangeslimes

elwy wrote: »

That's why I gave up on ethical funds. I think wriggly has got the right idea - make money anyhow and then donate to your chosen charities.

I hate the idea that if you just give money to charity after making money from whatever then that makes it ok.
For example you make money investing in the manufacture of arms to blow people up and then donate to a charity helping innocent civilians in war torn areas? Surely that is doing things the wrong way round?

I think ethical investment is an important concept- and hopefully the idea of it will become more mainstream and less people will want to make money "anyhow"

Also there is the argument that for example companies that do something to improve the world - e.g come up with more environmentally projects are likely to become increasingly important in the future (and make more money consequently)