Ethical Investment

Anybody out there in sharetradria know of an ethical investment fund specialising in NZ and Australia?

Maybe readers could share their choice of NZ company that complies with the triple bottom line.

I think SKX and TPW could both be candidates

Here is the ISE-CCM Alternative Energy (POW)
COMPONENTS

ACPW ACTIVE POWER INC
AMSC American Superconductor
BLDP Ballard Power Systems
CPST CAPSTONE TURBINE CORP
CV Central Vt Pub Svc
DESC DISTRIBUTED ENERGY SYSTEMS
EE El Paso Electric
EIX Edison Int'l
ENER Energy Conversion Devices
ESLR EVERGREEN SOLAR INC
FCEL Fuelcell Energy Inc
FPL FPL Group
HYGS HYDROGENICS CORP
IDA IDACORP Inc. Hldg. Co.
MDTL Medis Technologies Ltd
PLUG Plug Power Inc
ULBI Ultralife Batteries

Tyndall's run a NZ ethical fund.

It depends on what your ethics are. Different funds have different screening processes. Alcohol, smoking, gambling, armaments, pollution, mining, sex, interest, meat,animal rights, staff relations.......

Yes... and what happens when your ethical company strikes an ethics hurdle. Westpac in Australia is one of the leading lights for triple bottom line or corporate responsibility reporting, yet it has one of the lowest customer satisfaction ratings and banks, well, they just screw people over, don't they?[:p] And what about allegations in NZ that bank staff are offered incentives to persuade customers to take on more debt than they can afford. Is that ethical?

BHP in Australia was the first to introduce corporate social responsiblity.... but only after their business practices were exposed.

WAM in NZ are considered leaders in triple bottom line reporting -- they have a corporate responsibility section in their Annual Report. Converting trucks to run on biodiesel, capturing gas to generate electricity from landfills, that kind of stuff.

http://www.hunterhall.com.au/frequen...vestmentPolicy

These guys have a good investment track record and some screening. They still may invest in miners or booze barrons though, so if your ethics exclude those you would have to look elsewhere.

Tower had an ethical investment, but I think it closed due to lack of interest.

Good luck - Arthur

Well this is an old old thread, but looks like the best place to mention new Tahito venture based on 'indigenous values'. Advice from JMI Wealth. Will watch with interest but not quite sure about the principals.

Prior to launching Tahito, Hall – who has a 20-year career in asset management – headed the now-defunct IwiInvestor KiwiSaver scheme. Co-founder Winitana is a “writer, journalist, producer, creator and consultant”...


https://investmentnews.co.nz/investm...it-with-aroha/

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Originally Posted by artemis

Well this is an old old thread, but looks like the best place to mention new Tahito venture based on 'indigenous values'. Advice from JMI Wealth. Will watch with interest but not quite sure about the principals.

Prior to launching Tahito, Hall – who has a 20-year career in asset management – headed the now-defunct IwiInvestor KiwiSaver scheme. Co-founder Winitana is a “writer, journalist, producer, creator and consultant”...


https://investmentnews.co.nz/investm...it-with-aroha/

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This is nothing new. Where I grew up in Canada the 1st Nations have done similar 'ethical' investments in managed funds. Our assessment (at the time when I was at Uni) we concluded such funds do not provide a decent level of return for the level of risk involved. Not only they consistently provided lower returns to their investors, they also incurred fund management & administration fees no lower than what the mainstream fund managers charge.

Is there a place for such ethical fund management? NO. In the eyes of a 'public good', issues like cultural and environmental concerns, these areas should only be handled at the gov't level. Just one look at how OECD nations have prospered vs developing nations such as China. Anotherwords, the private sector (such as this Tahito fund) can not provide any basis of ethical concern or specifically, 'self regulation' than what a large, nationwide, gov't regulatory can provide. Meanwhile, the western world continues to have their goods produced in developing places, yes it's OK to pollute China type of deal.

Carbon Capture
This might have been a good idea at the time
Will pine trees go the same way?
https://qz.com/1891765/the-uss-only-...YPL&yptr=yahoo

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Originally Posted by Arthur

It depends on what your ethics are. Different funds have different screening processes. Alcohol, smoking, gambling, armaments, pollution, mining, sex, interest, meat,animal rights, staff relations.......

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New forum member DTC wanted some comment on ethical investing, so time to wake up this thread.

I think Arthur sums it up well, and ethics are multidimensional. For example, wouldn't investing in the first NZX listed company to have everyone on their payroll earning the living wage be a good thing to do? Well that company was Sky City Entertainment, our locally listed Casino operator.

I am an SKC shareholder from way back. I have stayed at their hotels but never gambled at their casinos. Last time I stayed there though, I decided to walk around the Auckland gaming floor to take a look. I became a 'person of interest' to security because I wasn't gambling! Didn't get thrown out or anything, just spoken to, but I think they thought I could be involved in some sophisticated scam. It just goes to show that people are being watched there, including prospective problem gamblers. Many people are happy to have a pint at their local pub, oblivious to the cluster of pokies in a separate room that is very obviously unsupervised. Are these turn a blind eye pub users better than I am?

My original investment in Sky City Casinos - as it was then - was because I wanted an investment foot in the tourism sector. The appeal was that as well as being used by international tourists, it was a complex that also appealed to locals. I don't approve of 'problem gambling'. I don't approve of 'reckless driving'. But I still drive a car. An individual can choose to misuse a situation. That doesn't mean that all other people should be banned from that activity, or branded 'unethical' for taking part. Of course problem gamblers can asked to be trespassed from Sky City themselves, if they are mature enough to recognise they have an issue. This will be enforced by Sky City too.

I guess what I am saying is that when it comes to ethics, what you do will very much depend on where you are focussing your ethical glasses.

SNOOPY

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Originally Posted by Snoopy

I am an SKC shareholder from way back. I have stayed at their hotels but never gambled at their casinos. Last time I stayed there though, I decided to walk around the Auckland gaming floor to a look. I became a 'person of interest' to security because I wasn't gambling!

SNOOPY

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lol I can imagine that. I can imagine you having the capacity to card count at the poker table snoop - good to see security on their game.

• Interesting to see this thread started right back in 2006 when ethical investment wasn’t on most peoples, or investment managers, radars.
• Now the amount of money going into ethical investing and especially Environmental Social Governance (ESG) funds is extraordinary.
• As people here have pointed out, one person’s ethics is another’s evilness. And really, the case could be made that there is no more to be said therefore on the issue.
• Elon though said a lot (in a few words), about all this last week when S&P global removed Tesla from their ESG index:

https://www.reuters.com/business/sus...on-2022-05-20/

• Some of the ESG ETF’s hold huge swathes of companies like Apple and Microsoft shares, and these companies are brutal on the environment (it also could be said that Tesla is brutal in the environment).
• Green washing seems to be the game of the moment.
• However, given all that, personally, unless I invest according to my own ethics, I feel like a fraud.
• This way, every which way, win, lose or approximately draw, at least I’ve reduced my cognitive dissonance :)