1What is Socially Responsible Investing?

Clearly, when you make the choice on where to invest your money, the biggest concern is investing with a company who will make money for you.

However, more and more people are beginning to also consider their ideals and values when they make investment choices.

This is also called socially responsible investing or values-based investing.

Investing in a socially responsible manner is choosing to invest in companies who have policies and values that you support. In many cases, these values include things like:

• Environmental issues
• Human rights
• Employee protection issues
• Faith based issues

For example, if the environment is a big concern for you, the investments that you make would be focused on companies who work for environmental change or who have taken steps to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.

2Philanthropy vs Values Based Investing

In the past, investing based upon your values was considered more of a philanthropic adventure. You could invest your money in companies promoted the same value you have, but you probably weren’t doing it with the expectation of making money.

However over the last few decades, this has changed. Values based investing is now a legitimate investing option and a proven way to invest your money. $3.1 was invested in 2010 in businesses that were determined to be value based.

3What is the Benefit?

The purpose of investing is to give money to a company that will use that money to grow. Some of that growth will be returned to you.

The benefit for socially responsible investing is the opportunity to “put your money where your mouth is”. When you invest in a company you believe in, you will get the return on your investment and also the satisfaction of knowing that you helped a good company get even better.

4Socially Responsible Values to Consider

Here are several of the types of companies that many people choose to invest in because of the added bonus of being socially responsible.

Companies that focus on:

• Clean energy
• Being environmentally sustainable
• Support human rights
• Doing work to reduce poverty, violence or hunger
• Value consumer protection

Before you can make investment choices, you have to decide which of your values you want to support with your investment.

5Making Decisions

Once you decide that you are interested in values based investing, you have to find out what options are available to you.

Since being socially responsible has become such an important topic to many people and organizations, this is easier than ever.

Once you decide what values you want to invest in, you just have to find the investments to make.

A great resource to find out about your option is the website The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. If you focus your investments on mutual funds, there are many available that gather socially responsible companies from different areas and put them in the same mutual fund.

6It’s Still an Investment

It is important to remember that you are still making an investment decision. You should never invest in a company just because they support your values.

There are two options that most experts recommend. You can start by selecting a wide variety of good investment options, then use value based principles to narrow down your options for investing.

Another option is to start with a list of companies whose values you want to support. Then you should evaluate them from an investment perspective to decide where to invest your money.

Which approach you take should be based on whether it is more important for you to make money on your investments or to support causes that you believe in.

What do you think?

Do you include your values in your investment choices?

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