Socially Responsible Investing

[firehawkocean]

Hello everybody,

I have yet another question. I have heard about socially responsible investing. At first glance, it looks like a great idea, since I hate to support cigarette & defense companies with my money. Is there any insight that anyone can give in regards independent investing into mutual funds that are focused on socially responsible investing?

[kv968]

Hello everybody,

I have yet another question. I have heard about socially responsible investing. At first glance, it looks like a great idea, since I hate to support cigarette & defense companies with my money. Is there any insight that anyone can give in regards independent investing into mutual funds that are focused on socially responsible investing?

Here's a list of some funds that show their different aspects of social responibilities if that's what you're looking for:

Social Funds

[bjl584]

Pretty hard to do. All companies have issues. If they aren't making a product that you may not agree with (guns, tobacco, alcohol, chemicals), then they probably have something unethical going on with their employees, their compensation, OSHA regulations, their accounting practices, or some other thing that may make you cringe. You can be the greenist most socially friendly company ever, but someone can always find something wrong.


For instance, I own Caterpillar stock. I'm sure at some point in the history of the planet that their machines have been used to knock down a rainforest, rape vegetation in an open pit quarry, or ruin some pristine mountainside. But, is Caterpillar an evil company? Are the people that buy their equipment evil? Do they promote evil activity? Probably not. I just know that the stock has nearly tripled since I bought it and it pays a nice dividend.

[elessar78]

I was thinking about this the other day. My investments are primarily in broadly based mutual funds (US/Europe/Asia/Emerging)... there is no way to know what kind of things my some of my money is invested in.

1% of my money could be funding a company with a subsidiary that makes abortion tools and another 1% that employs sweatshop labor in Bangladesh for part of their production.

[photo]

First, you have to define social responsibility, which will not be the same for all people. I always said I'd never invest in a tobacco company, yet I was upset to find one year that a mutual fund that I have had some investments in one (and it isn't uncommon at all, unfortunately).

A lot depends on how many layers deep you want to go.

[jteezie]

Yeah... this can get grey very fast. Most big companies own small or large interests of other companies as a way to diversify risk and manage their money. It's just hard to really know. It goes the other way if you want to invest in say greentech because those companies likely receive some sort of funding from larger companies. Then there's the value judgement.

Example, I own Google because I think they're good and it's a way for me to be philanthropic (kinda), but they own Youtube, tons of patents, are fairly monopolistic, etc... some people may be opposed to that as anti-competitive/free market/liberty *shrug.

There are some more black and white funds though like "US -ex tobacco" or "US -ex conventional weapons".

[ecoadapt]

"Socially responsible investing" sometimes narrowly refers to practices that seek to avoid harm through negative screening of companies included in an investment portfolio.