Ethical Investments

What is ethical investing?

The first ethical investment fund was launched in 1984 by Friends Provident, driven primarily by the fact that they began as an organisation serving the Quaker community. Since then, the ethical investment market has continued to grow as environmental and socially responsible policies become central to our everyday lives.

Generally speaking, ethical funds fall into two categories – social responsibility or environmental, with some funds aiming to satisfy both social responsibility and environmental mandates.

One method to build an ethical investment portfolio is to simply avoid firms or funds that are active in the sale of arms, or the production of fossil fuels, for example. This is called negative screening.

The flip side of this approach, positive screening, seeks investments in firms or funds that set out to make a difference, in for example, renewable energy or human rights and animal welfare issues.

Investing ethically does not mean sacrificing investment performance, it is possible to achieve long-term growth by investing in businesses that contribute to the wellbeing of society.

Our approach to ethical investing

We have partnered with a specialist fund management company to offer an Ethical Managed Portfolio Service (MPS) to our clients who have chosen ethical investment. By partnering with a trusted investment manager we can offer you the best of both worlds:

• comprehensive and personalised holistic financial planning advice
• industry-leading specialised ethical investment management

Together, we can help you explore how ethical investing could fit with your wider financial goals, while taking account of your values and attitude to risk.

Important considerations

It is important to understand that placing ethical restraints on your investments may have some implications:

• A portfolio matching your ethical beliefs may not be suitable for your attitude to investment risk.
• Ethical funds may under perform their non-ethical counterparts, particularly when stock markets fall. This means that the chance of capital loss is greater.
• Ethical funds may be more volatile than their non-ethical alternatives.

• It may not be possible to access a particular asset class, sector or geographical area.

Next steps

If you are prepared to accept the above implications and would like us to apply an ethical mandate to your investments, please contact us to complete our Ethical Investment Questionnaire.