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Donald Malarkie, Press and Journal IN today's world the subject of green and ethical issues is constantly in the headlines. Last month, Governments of every nation met to discuss environmental issues at the Earth Summit in Rio. At this moment Greenpeace activists are generating high profile publicity through their occupation of Rockall. This buzz of activity and headlines creates an ever-increasing awareness of green and ethical dilemmas among the public. From the strictly narrow standpoint of investment the investor wants to make money and salve his conscience. The vehicles for this are known as ethical and ecological investments which buy shares in companies which, for example, manufacture green products or deliberately avoid sectors such as tobacco and arms sales. There is considerable disagreement as to precisely what constitutes an ethical fund. Friends Provident's Stewardship Fund was the first ethical fund and was launched in 1984 and was described at the time by sceptical City insiders as the Brazil fund. This was because it was perceived that anyone who invested in the fund was "nutty", there being no chance of making a point. In the event, the ethical sector has grown steadily in popularity since then. Even when the prosperous 80s gave way to the more austere 90s and there were lower sales of green products, contrary to the trend, ethical and ecological investments continued to prosper. The attitude of many investors reluctanty to venture into green investments has been that they were not prepared to sacrifice fund performance for ethical ideas, or at least that was their perception. However, now that we've had 15 years to assess ethical fund performance, the upshot is that ethical and ecological investments are seen to perform in line with the non-ethical general investment market-which should not be surprising given that sound environmental practice make for good business practices. The conclusion is, therefore' that you can have peace of mind as well as a reasonable return for your money by investing ethically. Arange of investment vehicles give access to ethical opportunities including off-shore funds and pension funds with unit trusts as the largest group. There is a freephone helpline for Press and Journal readers for more details - 0800 243035. In choosing a fund attention to the performance record is important, and since there are various categories of ethical and ecological funds, if you wish to invest in a particular area then care should be taken to make sure you are choosing the most appropriate fund. The past performance of ethical funds is not a guarantee for the future and the value of the investment can go down as well as up.
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