Ethical Investment Week 2020
Ethical Investment Week, 24th –30th October 2020, is an opportunity for New Zealanders to learn more about investing in line with their ethics.
Now in its seventh year, Ethical Investment Week highlights and communicates the objectives and benefits of ethical investment advice and ethical investments. Ethical advisers help you match your ethical values with your investments.
Ethical Investment Week gives you an opportunity to ensure your investments are best suited to your beliefs, attitudes, and ethics by consulting with advisers who are specialists in this area. Ethical Investment Week is co-ordinated in Australasia by the Ethical Adviser's Co-Op, a group of 31 ethical advisers, collectively managing over $2 billion of ethical investors’ money. Rodger Spiller of Money Matters has been part of the Co-Op team arranging Ethical Investment Week and is excited to be again promoting this initiative in New Zealand.
Rodger suggests that Ethical Investment Week is a good time to explore the question ‘How Healthy is Your Portfolio?’ Compared with a more healthy portfolio are your investments earning less return, at higher risk with negative impact on the world? Consulting an independent ‘Good Money Doctor’ with specialist education and experience can enable you to obtain an expert diagnosis and prescription. With a PhD in ethical investing and ethical business and over three decades experience in this field, Rodger is uniquely placed to advice investors who want to make money and make a difference.
A key challenge for investors is assessing the ethical credentials of funds. This is an issue the NZ Sustainable Finance Forum highlighted in its interim report when it noted the challenge of ‘greenwashing’ in which products, such as managed funds, claim ‘green credentials that in reality have little positive environmental (or social) benefit’. This issue has been taken up by the regulator, the Financial Markets Authority, that has recently stated: ‘With the growing popularity of these products we want to ensure investors are protected from 'greenwashing' and have a clear understanding of what is on offer. They should be able to determine just how green, ethical, or responsible a financial product is.’ Part of the role that Money Matters plays is advising investors on the authenticity of investment options. This includes Rodger drawing upon the collective research and views of colleagues in the Ethical Advisers' Co-Op.
Rodger strongly agrees with this year’s Ethical Investment Week theme that it is indeed: ‘Time to Make the Change’ to more ethical investments. The Co-Op offer a range of suggested actions that include:
Find out about ethical investing by visiting www.ethicaladviserscop.org and http://www.ethicaladviserscoop.org/ethical-investment-week.html
Talk to an ethical adviser about reinvesting your portfolio into more ethical investments
Contact your fund managers and ask them how they are investing ethically
Have a conversation with your bank about how they are using your money
Spread the word to your family and friends - use the hashtag #EthicalInvestWk
A similar initiative is occurring in the UK. Titled ‘Good Money Week’ it notes that ‘nearly 40% of us plan to revamp our finances since the pandemic. How about a ‘clean slate, green slate’? We are making cleaner, greener choices with our money when it comes to household products and renewable energy providers. Your bank, pension, savings and investments could have an even bigger positive impact on the planet.’ Suggested actions include:
Speak to your financial adviser about sustainable or ethical investment options
Tweet your bank to ask if they support a net zero future
Tweet your charity to ask how it invests your donations
Ask your faith organisation how it invests its money
Tweet and Facebook us - and the world - what you've done using #CleanSlateGreenSlate
The Good Money website includes quotes from a range of ethical investors including Caroline White: "I do believe in doing the right thing, but there are likely to be healthy returns too. So, it's win-win." Good Money Week describes how the world ‘faces big problems: extreme weather, inequality, food and water shortages and a rapidly growing population to name a few. All too often, companies are contributing to these problems though reckless and irresponsible behaviour such as polluting, treating workers unfairly, not paying their fair share of taxes and wiping out acres of fertile land’. They highlight that where our money goes impacts our lives and that of future generations and encourage you to: ‘Take action today’.