What is Sustainable Investing?
“At its core, ESG investing is about influencing positive changes in society by being a better investor,” says Hank Smith, Head of Investment Strategy at The Haverford Trust Company.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing is a strategy you can use to put your money to work with companies that strive to make the world a better place. ESG investing relies on independent ratings that help you assess a company’s behavior and policies when it comes to environmental performance, social impact and governance issues.
By: E. Napoletano, Benjamin Curry, Contributor and Editor respectively of Forbes Advisors, March 1, 2021
Who are Sustainable Investors?
We can ALL be sustainable investors. The doors to sustainable investing have been opened to all investors, no matter their net worth and no matter their level of issue specific expertise. At Atlas we have encountered sustainable investors who:
- Have a strong belief in reducing the impact of climate change
- See the benefit of gender diversification in corporate management
- Recognize that everyone plays a roll in racial equality
- Believe that how and where they spend their money matters
- Are everyday people who just want the world to be a better place
Leading ESG Issues
In 2021, the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing released a study, Sustainable Funds Outperform Peers during 2020 Coronavirus. The Institute found that in a year of extreme volatility and recession, funds focused on “on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, across both stocks and bonds, weathered the year better than non-ESG portfolios.”
What were the leading issues?
- Corporate Political Activity
- Labor and Equal Employment Opportunity
- Climate Change
How You Can Become A Sustainable Investor?
Atlas Wealth Strategies can provide the resources, tools and management advice to get you started. We can provide access to professionally managed LPL Research portfolios, comprised of mutual funds or ETFs, that have funds from the leaders in the field.
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI)/Environmental Social Governance (ESG) investing has certain risks based on the fact the criteria excludes securities of certain issuers for non-financial reasons and, therefore, investors may forego some market opportunities and the universe of investments available will be smaller.