"Tie your investments to your values, beliefs, and important causes without sacrificing financial goals. Invest with purpose."
1. What is it?
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing—also referred to as sustainable investing—allows you to tailor your investments to issues that matter to you most. Going beyond socially responsible investing (SRI), ESG investing incorporates a set of standards, aligning a company's operations and strategy with principles related to environmental responsibility, social concerns, and corporate governance.
2. Features
The idea grew out of a growing awareness of pursuing financial goals while promoting societal well-being. By choosing an ESG/sustainable investment vehicle, you can select companies whose concerns tend to match the issues you care about and avoid companies that operate contrary to your values. We use one or several of screeners, depending on your beliefs, to build a diversified portfolio of ESG-conscious investments to meet long-term goals.
3. Build your portfolio to screen out managers who have practices or business models you don't agree with
ESG investing's most compelling feature is obvious: the ability to put your money to work:
A) You can support goals that may also result in personal financial gain.
B) Shareholders of sustainable investments can use their ownership rights to communicate with corporate management—through proposals, meetings, and proxy voting—in an effort to influence policies and decisions.
C) Through this type of pooled activism, sustainable portfolios allow single investors to exert more influence than they typically would have by selecting individual securities.
Investing in the stock market involves gains and losses and may not be suitable for all investors. The investment’s socially responsible focus may limit the investment options available to the investment and may result in returns lower than those from investments not subject to such investment considerations.
