Savings & Investments
Ethical and Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) options
We’re all being increasingly encouraged to consider how the decisions we make will affect the state of our planet for future generations, whether it’s using less plastic or cycling instead of using our car, so we’re delighted to help the growing number of clients now wanting to apply this to their investment decisions.
While you may have clear goals for your investment, such as how long you’re looking to invest, what you’ll use the money for, the returns you hope to achieve and how much risk you’re prepared to take, have you considered how the underlying companies within your investment affect our communities and the wider environment?
Here at Hoyl, we have clients with specific ethical, environmental and/or religious beliefs who only want their money invested in a portfolio that reflects their views. Ethical investing isn’t for everyone, but we’re pleased to be able to offer specific investment options for those who feel strongly about where they’d like their money to be invested.
At present, there are only a limited number of high quality ethical funds with a proven track record that meet the criteria needed for our investment strategy. This means choosing ethical funds could potentially impact a portfolio’s diversification and performance, and we will always make this clear and make sure clients are willing and able to accept such risks.
Socially Responsible can be defined as ‘any investment that takes significant account of social, ethical, environmental or governance issues’. In the retail investment market ‘SRI’ is often used along with the term ‘ethical investment’, although this is actually more appropriate for fund options which focus significant attention on ethical issues.
Examples of SRI issues include:
Social - relating to people, such as human rights, labour standards, child labour, equal opportunities and food supply.
Environment - environmental challenges, such as climate change, pollution, bio-diversity, environmental management, waste and the use of natural resources – including water, forestry and mining.
Governance - issues relating to company management, such as board structure, executive remuneration, bonuses and avoidance of bribery and corruption.
Ethical - values based and ethical concerns, such as tobacco, armaments, alcohol, irresponsible marketing or advertising and animal welfare.
The number of SRI issues a fund considers can have a significant impact on where it might invest, although it’s how those issues are dealt with, referred to as a fund’s ‘SRI approach’ that often has a greater impact on investment strategy.
The funds we choose for our portfolios are SRI funds, and we’ll always provide Key Investor Information Documents for each fund. These contain more information on the fund provider, fund manager, assets in which it invests, its aims and how it’s Socially Responsible.