OBG: b&b175 Socially Responsible Investing with Ian McLeod: How We Can Do More
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Investing can be tricky. The hopes of investing is that you will receive more than what you put in. What we learned with Ian McLeod is that where you invest is just as important as what you receive.
Sounds too good to be true? Listen to the episode to hear for yourself!
Music featured in this episode:
- 1). Socially Just – Nomis
- 2). Men in Black Hoodies – Earresponsible
- 3). Letters from Lazy – Responsiblewayne
(This track didn’t make it on the episode. We ran out of time, but you should still check it out!)
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Episode Highlights:
Ian: So, socially Responsible Investing, the way I see it, it’s an approach to investments, in typically the publicly traded markets, stocks and bonds, but it can extend beyond that, but an approach to incorporating more than just the numbers, the bottom line, the financials, into investment decisions…it’s incorporating your values, your politics, into how you make investment decisions.
Ian: The first mutual fund that incorporated any principles of socially responsible investing was what is now called the Pax Balanced Fund…in 1970 or ‘71, they decided, people got together, they were like “we don’t want to put money into companies that are profiting from the destruction of Vietnam, and we’re not gonna do that. We wanna invest, but we’re not gonna put money into companies that profit from that.”
Ian: It’s kinda the idea of making your money do or not do stuff you don’t agree with probably goes way back.
Ian: Organizations and people that, in all other areas of their life care about this stuff, they just don’t think that you can do it in a portfolio to any extent. You’ll have organizations that have some community minded mission: environmental, social, even labor unions who use Wall Street to invest their pension funds. For example, companies, Wall Street firms, that are the most vehemently and rabidly anti-union you might imagine, but they don’t think that you can incorporate your values into your investments. So, environmental organizations investing in fossil fuels, it’s like, “Wait, what?” Where’s the logic there? It doesn’t make any sense.