Got a few grand spare and want to invest it for the GF.

She doesn’t want it invested in the likes of Amazon nor Google. Nor does she want it anywhere near companies that **** up our environment.

I’ve already got some money bunged on Royal London Sustainable World, but it’s not the sort of sustainable the girlfriend wants.

Can anyone recommend a good performing fund that is conscious of who they invest in?

Their are quite a few ‘ethical’ funds, have a good google of them.

Or there’s plenty of green-energy funds.

Green you say? Legalised weed is in the post for the UK, just a matter of time. Why not get ahead of the curve and go all in on Big Herba – definition of sustainable growth for the well-being of society.

@garry… I’ve invested more than I care to recall in green industries…😁

Tesla. Bloke’s a bit of a knob but the cars are trying replace ICEs and he’s doing $hitloads in battery storage solutions to replace fossil fuel burning. Biden’s administration will be chucking $billions at the green issue post-Trump, so the shares may perform well.
Caveat, IANAE/hedge fund manager.
Not a fund though

Watching this one with interest as I’ve yet to find one.
I’ve found a few claiming to “ethical” but a bit of looking found that they were full of tabaco companies.
My brother thought his was good until he looked and found Amazon was 10% and Nestlé was 15% (destroying our species in half the world with single use watchers).

found Amazon was 10% and Nestlé was 15% (destroying our species in half the world with single use watchers).

That’s the sort of shit she wants to avoid.

https://www.trustnet.com/fund/price-performance/t/investment-trusts?sector=T%253AEVR&IsTrustnetITSpecialistVct=null&tab=fundOverview&pageSize=25

Are three environmental trusts. There are loads more Environmental Funds…

Green you say? Legalised weed is in the post for the UK, just a matter of time. Why not get ahead of the curve and go all in on Big Herba – definition of sustainable growth for the well-being of society.

Quite a boom / bust industry in the USA / Canada. Everyone started producing expecting a boom with legalisation, but over supply caused the price per ounce to crash as too many growers chasing too few users. Cue loads of growers exiting the market and the price rising etc.

Almost 60% of mutual fund assets will be ESG by 2025, so you’ll soon be spoilt for choice.

Quite a boom / bust industry in the USA / Canada. Everyone started producing expecting a boom with legalisation, but over supply caused the price per ounce to crash as too many growers chasing too few users. Cue loads of growers exiting the market and the price rising etc.

Can you grow weed in our UK climate or would we be importing it? I’m not talking about Teds with lamps in their basements, but massive scale horticulture out in the fields.

My pension is I’m Standard Life Ethical.
I’ve also a Wealthify Ethical ISA.
And a few quid with Triodos’ Micro Investment fund.

All good returns, apart from this year’s Covid related plummet.

To add: you’re spoilt for choice these days. Additionally there’s a few articles suggesting that the ethical funds will outperform many other funds shortly.

May I suggest Aviva’s Climate Transition fund:

https://www.avivainvestors.com/en-gb/about/company-news/2020/06/aviva-investors-launches-further-climate-transition-equity-fund-/

From a glance, appears to be largely companies in the supply chain for renewable energies.

Also, Tesla? Be wary. The company is over-valued to the tune of $1.25m per car produced. That’s not a healthy state, but then the investment is in Musk rather than his company.

Also, there’s an HSBC Islam Investment fund, which appears to be fairly ethical by those values and has performed well mid-long term.

EDIT: I invested in ITM not so long back. The potential – and likely – shift for energy-intensive industries to hydrogen is vast. They’ve already nearly doubled in a very short space of time.

Green you say? Legalised weed is in the post for the UK, just a matter of time. Why not get ahead of the curve and go all in on Big Herba – definition of sustainable growth for the well-being of society.

Check out Zoetic, Supreme Cannabis, Sativa Wellness. Zoetic for a good example of some huge gains already (a mate is at 500% from just a few months).

Ages ago someone in here mentioned AFC – hydrogen tech – still in dev. It’s seams like in the last 6 months they have a product to market an a couple of signups.

Can you grow weed in our UK climate or would we be importing it? I’m not talking about Teds with lamps in their basements, but massive scale horticulture out in the fields.

UK is the world’s largest producer of medical cannabis, so yeh, it grows OK here haha

I’m in the ‘be cautious’ bracket as well and I find it infuriating, many funds are branding themselves as ‘ethical’ or ‘sustainable’ but quite frankly most humans looking at their investments wouldn’t consider them so. Some of it is green washing – if Shell promise they’ll start developing wind power can you call that a sustainable investment? And far more difficult to determine is the traceability of materials. So yes Tesla is advancing the norm for much more than electric vehicles. But they haven’t actually made much new technology in batteries and the resources for those (and similarly for mobile phones, satellite technologies and much more) are rare metals with very poor traceability of environmental and human (work) conditions at the ‘upstream’ end. Had a questionnaire from USS (big University pension fund) about what we consider to be ‘ethical’ in the first place. Tobacco? Military / defense? Mining, can be double-edged (as in we need the resources for everything we own but some companies are ‘good’ and some terrible)? Traditional fossil fuels that also invest in renewables?

All this means you do have to have a very good look around at who the funds are investing in. And don’t expect huge returns if the GF doesn’t want big-tech, because this year at least it is American-listed big tech that has kept the markets buoyant (Tesla, Google, Amazon, Facebook). If you want something you can just leave, there are funds-of-funds like ASI Multi-manager Ethical which should be making the most of various mangers picks, but it makes it very hard to track what is being purchased. I like Jupiter Ecology as a reasonably well performing ethical / environmental fund, but note some of the companies work in both recycling and increasing productivity in mining. It is up to you / the GF to work out what she is content is ‘working in the right direction’. For higher risk / growth have a look at Stewart Investors Global Emerging Markets Sustainability and Royal London Sustainable World (Global Sustainable Equity), moderate risk ASI Europe ex UK Ethical and for low risk Royal London Ethical Bonds Fund.

I’d be steering clear of individual stocks, and certainly ones like Tesla, where 1 tweet can wipe out 6 months gain in an hour.
If you want exposure to Tesla, then realistically you probably need to be invested in one of the top funds that invest in the top Tech stocks, so means you’ll be invested in Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix etc. too. Fund managers will have a lot more skill at being able to manage exposure to Tesla (which imho has a price more in line with 90s tech boom just before the bubble burst)
All the top investing sites should have their recommended top 50 or so funds covering all manner of investment areas. I think ii have some suggested funds that sway towards sustainability and ethical practice, but I have no idea how well they do.
I’m looking more towards recovery stocks, but many of those sway more towards the unethical (oil, banks, airlines, etc.).

Looking at folk who use Task Force on Climate related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) is a good start. The guidance is better than their ability to use acronyms.

There might be something here to suit.
https://www.ii.co.uk/ii-ace

Ages ago someone in here mentioned AFC – hydrogen tech

I saw this on Tuesday night and thought it would be worth a dabble, so laced a kill-or-fill order. This rejected on Wednesday morning because it went up 14% overnight. Watching a subsequent dip / pull back, and it’s gone up another 14%. So that would have made over 25% if bought on Tuesday.

Hard, as always, to look past Vanguard.

Vanguard ESG

Over 4000 companies on there so very diversified.

One thing though, I’m sure they sell Nestle chocolate bars in vending machines at the Tesla.

Reducing impact of investment should be a goal not being a purity test.

Baillie Gifford Positive Change? Don’t trust me though, I just doubled my holding in it and it promptly lost 3% after a year of steady gains. 🙁

There’s been a BIG correction in a lot of funds this week. Maybe profit taking after some huge rises so far this year.

Reducing impact of investment should be a goal not being a purity test.

Well, it depends on how much you care.

If you want truly ethical investments you basically need to forget about listed companies.

Something like this is genuinely ethical: http://www.rootstock.org.uk/

Have you thought about community power shares?
https://hces.coop/kinlochbervie/

I put some in Liontrust sustainable about 3 months ago, so far its outperforming the ubiquitous Vanguard LifeStrategy 80.

Baillie Gifford Positive Change?

Already have a decent chunk in that…. As well as BG Global Discovery, BG Global Stewardship, BG American and SMT….

There’s been a BIG correction in a lot of funds this week.

Yup… I’m 2.5% down on Sunday last week. Not anything to worry about, I think.

Vanguard ESG

10% over 12 months.
110% over five years.

Not getting very excited about that, personally.

Not getting very excited about that, personally.

Yeah, while it’s been better than keeping the money under the mattress, the Vanguard ethical fund has been the worst performing of my ESG investments.

I was also going to suggest looking at the Interactive Investor list – ACE stands for Avoids, Considers, Embraces. The Embraces category is where you’ll find most of the companies working for positive change.

110% over five years.

If you could guarantee me that over the next 5 years I’d put my money in now. It’s basically just avoided the big tech boom, which is what you wanted anyway isn’t it?

I put some in Liontrust sustainable about 3 months ago, so far its outperforming the ubiquitous Vanguard LifeStrategy 80.

My split of LS100 & LS60 hat netted me 2% over six months. Better than a savings account, but hardly a miracle. Luckily its money for 10 years time so hopefully it’ll have done better by then.

Just invest in the top 3 oil and mining co’s by market cap and be done with it. Your Tesla and 99% of ethical co products are basically:

* Made of plastic, oil byproducts, metal and rare earth metals.
* Mainly still charged using electricity from oil, gas or coal fired power stations.
* Shipped 0”0’s of miles by air or sea at a cost of 10x any carbon they claim to save.

If there are suitable ethical co’s that replace their products the above will simply buy them.

Most co’s with an ethical stamp are just milking gov subsidies / grants.

😂

Just been reading the new BestInvest Spot the Dog report which highlights bad funds as well as Pedigree picks in each sector. Worth a free download as it highlights a few ethical funds in different categories/regions within the pedigree picks and no ethical dog funds. Download here

but massive scale horticulture out in the fields

I wouldn’t be investing in a 3rd world operation that grew weed outside that’s for sure.

http://www.rootstock.org.uk/

The same Nestle vending machine concept applies for 99.9% of companies. Fossil fuels in employees vehicles or to heat premises, Amazon cloud hosting of websites, etc.

I’m sure they’re a great company but it’s always going to be minimising not eradicating impact.

The same Nestle vending machine concept applies for 99.9% of companies. Fossil fuels in employees vehicles or to heat premises, Amazon cloud hosting of websites, etc.

I’m sure they’re a great company but it’s always going to be minimising not eradicating impact.

They’re not a company, they’re a co-op. That was my point – no limited company with shareholders is ever going to behave in a truly ethical manner.

(Incidentally though, I know some of the http://rootstock.org.uk/ crowd and there’s no way in hell they’d have Nestle in their vending machines, or have any vending machines, or knowingly use Amazon services…).

* Typo in the above, I meant to write listed, not limited.

110% over five years.

If you could guarantee me that over the next 5 years I’d put my money in now.

+1

I’d be set for retirement at 55 with that return!

Just been reading the new BestInvest Spot the Dog report which highlights bad funds as well as Pedigree picks in each sector.

Thanks for that, have downloaded and will have a look through later. I use BI, but must have switched off all email comms as don’t seem to get anything from them….