Green and

Ethical Investing

What's Important to YOU?

Ethical investing starts with your ideas and principles – what you believe to be important. Views vary from person to person, as do the approaches of most 'ethical' funds

Whether ISAs, investments or pensions Green and Ethical investing aims to allow you to make money and make a difference.

At Green Financial we like to do our bit. But it doesn't mean we are fanatics. Our view, both at home and at work, with regard to 'being green', is we do what we can, where we can.

What's important to us?

In the office we re-use or recycle all that we can, from envelopes to ink cartridges to glass milk bottles and coffee capsules. Most beverages we serve are organic and/or fair trade. We don’t drink from disposable plastic bottles and we don’t use paper or plastic cups. Where possible and practical we use recycled paper with environmentally friendly inks. All our lights are switched off when no one is in the office and our computers go to sleep every night. We use a ‘green’ energy supplier so 100% of our electricity came from renewable sources last year. We even have a small compost for food and teabags! But we aren’t perfect. There is still more we could do - and we’re working on it!

Saving YOU Time and Money

If you'd prefer to cut down your carbon footprint by holding virtual meetings with us using videoconferencing technology we are happy to do that. Our belief is that technology simply reduces the need for face-to-face meetings, it doesn't replace it.

So if you want to come to meet us to make sure we are as Green as we say, that is fine too. We encourage sustainable transport – the office is a few minutes walk from the underground and the train station and there is cycle parking available in the building and nearby.

Paperless Portfolios and Valid Valuations

We offer entirely paperless investments, ISAs and pensions. We offer online valuations, 24/7/365 and we can securely store all your portfolio documentation so you no longer have to receive reams of paper that is out of date by the time it arrives.

It's our belief that if we can save time and money by holding virtual meetings and reducing paper usage we can keep your fees down and reduce our impact on the environment.

A Common Sense Approach

We carry the common sense approach of doing 'what we can, where we can' to our clients for 'Green and Ethical investing' too. It is very difficult (but certainly not impossible) to be completely Green.

To watch a 5 minute video on our approach to ethical investing, please click here: ethical investing

So if you'd like to talk to us about doing what you can, where you can with your ISA, investments or pension – or in other words being as green as possible without impacting on risk or returns - please contact us.

Green Financial have long been a member of the Ethical Investment Association (EIA), the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF)

Please read on, if you'd like to know even more about Green and Ethical investing

Green by name and green by nature

At Green Financial Advice Limited, we have advocated this approach to investing while not compromising the client's requirements in fund selection recommendations.

Buying a green and ethical investment or financial product is a positive choice - your money not only works hard for you, but can also help society and the environment. If you recycle or make other green choices, it makes sense to look at green and ethical financial choices, too.

Green and ethical investments look at the wider impact of investing on society and the environment when seeking financial returns. They take into account social or environmental criteria in addition to financial criteria.

You may sometimes hear the terms 'responsible' or 'socially responsible investing' used interchangeably with 'green' and 'ethical', but they usually mean the same thing.

To be Technical for a moment...

The most widely used vehicles in this area are pooled equity and bond funds. These are mostly open-ended investment companies (OIEC's) unit trusts, investment trusts often found in ISAs or life and pension funds.

Make a difference AND make money?

Sustainable investing has received positive feedback from clients after initial discussion advising what it means, the positive effects and how it can be accomplished. Research has shown that many investors would consider ethical investing if they knew it was an option, even if it held the possibility of foregoing some of their returns to do so and as we said previously, there is no evidence to say this is true. 

The success of any portfolio relies on many areas such as asset allocation, risk control, cost control and fund management skill among other things. It is a wrong to assume that all ethical funds do not have the benefit of these.

The opinion that limiting investment choice by excluding certain companies or sectors leads to underperformance is an argument against active management rather than against sustainable and ethical investment. Nearly all active managers screen out stocks for various reasons; that is how active management works.

Screened sustainable investment funds merely focus on stocks based in long term ethical and environmentally conscious businesses. Mainstream portfolio construction techniques can still be applied in the same way as the majority of fund managers already do.

Green Financial reviews a substantial quantity of research before any fund is considered for a portfolio. This means that all our recommended funds, ethical or not, are researched in the same way and although we want to be able to offer a good range of ethical funds, no fund would be added to a portfolio purely because it is ethical.

Summary

If you'd like to become a long term client with a Green and Ethical, Socially Responsible Portfolio encompassing ISAs, investments and pensions, managed and monitored regularly, please do contact us.