Ethical saving for baby triplets

frank_maccfc

Hi, my partner and I are lucky enough to have 9 month old triplets, we're keen to save for them where we can and have had at least one grandparent generously offer to pay something in regularly for them. We have considered an ethical growth fund but would like to explore what other (ideally ethical) options are available.
With triplets, time isn't something we're blessed with (understatement alert!) and this is something I'd normally do a lot of research on hence this post. My partner is about to start a new job whilst I will look after/get the run-around from the babies, at least for now so money isn't sloshing around. That said we've both got some savings which we hope will eventually be used to buy a house.
Any advice/shared experience will be hugely appreciated, esp any that doesn't require doing a lot of further reading but appreciate this isn't necessarily realistic! If there's more info required for you to be able to help, ask away.
Thanks for reading!

bowlhead99

What are your ethics? Different ethical funds have different stances on how much they are willing to compromise the fund's potential returns by deliberately excluding certain types of investments or by deliberately over-weighting what they consider to be positive ethical factors  within the company selection criteria, in the hope of potentially enhancing the returns.

On some level you might find something to fault with every single company in a global index in terms of what they buy, sell, how they treat customers and suppliers and employees and the environment and what the impact of their being successful might be on others - e.g. I build an out of town robotized warehouse to cheaply deliver products to people's homes, so that customers don't need to buy a car and commute into a crowded town centre with it to go and pick up a grocery item, but now the little old lady who works in the greengrocers is out of a job and doesn't want to get one lifting boxes in a warehouse, and the independent cafe which sold fairtrade coffee in recycled cups goes out of business because there is less passing trade etc etc.

You could no doubt work yourself into a tizzy by being worried that some of your babies' investments are going to support an energy company who exploit the world's oil reserves, and then five minutes later realise that part of what they are doing with their billions of oil revenue is going to help fund renewable energy infrastructure which a company without that level of revenues and income might not be able to accomplish as effectively.  Or what if some of your babies' money supports a social media network which helps communicate news about world affairs at high speed keeping people informed and educated  and entertained, but through which someone else might feel themselves to be a victim of online bullying or harassment. 

The simplest thing to do when you don't have the time to critically evaluate every opportunity is to invest broadly in a global tracker fund inside a JISA for the next eighteen years or so; that will give you exposure to 5000 companies around the world. Then what you could do is to say that a portion of the profits from investing like that for a decade or two will be given to a charity which makes a real difference to an issue which is close to your heart, whether that be homelessness or abuse or mental health or overseas poverty. or environmental campaigning etc etc. Or the grandparents' monthly direct debit could be split between an investment fund and a good cause.  This is a similar concept to the idea of taking a plane (because it's practically the easiest way to go quickly from A to B ) and then assuaging the guilt by paying money to a 'carbon offset' fund to plant some trees to absorb the CO2 emissions.

xylophone

How about JISA for each child? https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investing-explained/stocks-shares-junior-isa
https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/investments/vanguard-sri-global-stock-fund-accumulation-shares
https://www.gov.uk/junior-individual-savings-accounts

AnotherJoe

Buy HMWO and INRG 75%/25% respectively.

Job done.

Zorillo

We only have twins so I can only imagine what you're going through. Our two have JISA's invested in Vanguard's VLS100 fund.  I don't concern myself with the ethics of the investments, and just hope to live a moral life myself

MrsR1234

Your post indicates that you may not yet be home owners. I would concentrste on saving towards this, rather than saving for the children right now as this will be of direct benefit to them. It will give you potential long term stability as a family, particularly if you are renting now. 
Savings from a family member, will give them something, which will be of use to them as adults. 

Doneby55

As others have said, 3x JISAs with a provider of your choice. Then in terms of investments, as others have pointed out, it can be a bit of a minefield. Maybe concentrate on your main motivation - is it about having a world fit for them to inhabit (ie climate change the main driver)? If so, perhaps funds that exclude tobacco etc. wouldn't fulfil this purpose as well as a renewable energy focussed one. But then you'll have a diversification problem.

My personal opinion for an all round good positive approach - you could do worse than have a look at Baillie Gifford Positive Change.