Ethical investment: please vote!

[wellinghall]

[Poll #1406048]

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't see how ethics can be absolute: if you are looking for an 'ethical' fund then you have to pick one that meets your definition of 'ethical'.

However, I think it would be wrong for a charity to invest in a way that conflicted with the ethics of that charity.

That said, it's very hard. The Oldies Club has had some hard debates about whether the charity should accept funds from organisations that carry out animal testing, or that fail to take a stand against overbreeding of animals, or that are peripherally involved in puppy farming (all directly related to the mission of the charity) It would be even harder if we started looking at stuff like who makes our charity T-shirts. It's so hard for an organisation to stay 'clean'. :-(

[gramarye1971]

I think charities should certainly be sensible about their investments, and putting their money where their mouths are. To promote your charity's ends, it's only sensible to try to invest in companies that support those ends and not invest in companies that don't. A group campaigning for an end to sweatshops really shouldn't own stock in companies that use sweatshop labour, clearly. But should a group protesting the war in Iraq be deterred from owning stock in, say, IHS, which publishes useful information in Jane's Defence News and Lloyd's Register-Fairplay but also provides military consulting services?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think that "charities" is too over-arching a term to have any meaning in this case. Eton, SPCK, and the RSPCA are all charities. Eton can invest as it likes, as I can't think of anything that would be against its principles of ensuring that to those that have shall be given. For the avoidance of hypocrisy, SPCK ought not to invest in firms profiting from abortion - not that there actually are any, unless all pharmaceutical companies are ruled out. Likewise, considering its broad supporter base and mission the RSPCA should not invest in Huntingdon Life Sciences, although as an individual I might have no problems with being a member of the former and investing in the latter. And though the Eton and SPCK are both charities, I consider them harmful to society and where they put their cash is the least of my concerns.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong but I wonder if you mean SPUC (http://www.spuc.org.uk/) and not SPCK (http://www.spck.org.uk/) (which as far as I know does not have a particular stance on abortion)?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Oops! Yes, you're quite right, I do. Thanks for pointing it out.

ETA: Also, I'll be interested to learn what sparked wellinghall's original post.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Errr, I ticked the box outlawing animal experiments for ethical funds by mistake. (However, I do believe that my definition of "ethical investments" would not include a cosmetics company with an extensive animal-testing programme whereas, say, cancer med research on animals would be fine with me.)

[sally_maria]

I think nineveh_uk has a good point, and that if, for example, you were talking about an educational charity/literary society then the investments it ought to avoid are probably in firms that are attempting to bully individuals out of their rights under copyright law, and maybe those that profit from destroying the environment.

But I very much doubt that "ethical" investments of that type exist, unless the organisation was prepared to put a fair amount of work into investing in individual firms.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Generally, it should depend upon the object of the charity. Like people have already said, I wouldn't expect charities to invest in things that are seemingly incompatible with their objects.

Having said that, being a shareholder in a company that does something 'bad' is hardly the same as doing something 'bad'. In fact, charities might be able to use shareholder status to campaign for changes in the companies' policies rather better (and with more moral justification) than if they had no real connection with the company.

Another important point is that 'companies' are not inherently 'unethical'. Rather the management of a company may make a decision which a particular group considers unethical. From management's point of view, the ethical policy is the one that the shareholders want (in a listed company) since management's job is to run the company for the benefit of the shareholders.

So, how about this - if charities want to be really ethical, they should actively invest in companies which appear to them to be 'unethical' and try to change them using their rights as shareholders. If the majority of shareholders disagree, then tough.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask whether what was unethical about pharmaceuticals, but then someone sort of explained, but given that birth control, abortion and animal testing had been listed anyway, my question sort of still stands.

To be honest as far as I can tell 99.9% of people partake of the pharmaceuticals from the companies they object to if they get really sick anyway, so I often think this ethical concern is the one prone to hypocrisy anyway. Although it's often wise to put pressure on even if you don't out and out boycott something.

I agree that it depends on the aims of the charity and the desires of its membership and so on as to their own definition of ethical. Within that, they should be ethical, outside of that, probably the financials win out?? I can't be more specific.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can legislate as to what charity must invest in, only what they should not.

Incidentally, any charity which would not invest in abortion for 'ethical' reasons would not get my money. But that is just me.

[tovaglia.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

What's unethical about birth control? I suppose you could argue that all non-barrier methods are unethical because of the STD risk.

And: Even though I drink but don't smoke, I'd argue that alcohol investments are more unethical than tobacco investments, because alcohol is such a big factor in many cases of wifebeating and other forms of domestic abuse. Obviously most people who drink are not alcoholics. But the tiny minority of those who are, if they are drinking, can cause a lot of suffering.

*tovaglia goes off to pour herself a glass of elderflower wine bought from the booze stall at Sarehole Mill*

[bunn.livejournal.com]

*sings*

"Eeevery sperm is saaaaacreeeed...."

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

It depends on the ethics of the charity, surely. You can't just have a blanket statement that some things are good and others are not.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

If you were doing this survey to get a feel for what people consider ethical I'm afraid there is some duplications and areas of confusion.

To some people pharma-corps are horrendous overcharging product licencing bastards, to those who need the medicines produced, or indeed developed by the R&D their overcharging can fund, and have an NHS to share the payments they're bloody useful and good things!

To some people arms/military equipement (and indeed armed forces generally) are unethical, to those serving, or with family members in the services they're not.

As far as a certain literary society educational/charity is concerned (if this poll was to look for clues as to where to go with that) I'd say that that society probably would be wiser not to get its knickers in a twist about this as it doesn't have the volunteer time to micro-manage its investmenst to the degree that the multitudinous, and conflicting, desires of the membership might require. In other words don't open pandora's luggage.

(edits for typos)

[clarienne.livejournal.com]

If we're talking about the funds of a charity that doesn't have a particular axe to grind, then the lazy but straightforward answer would be to invest the money in an 'ethical' financial company. I bank with the coop on this basis - I'm sure if I looked into it closely I wouldn't agree with all their ethical stances in detail, but I think they probably add up to a better ethical stance than that of a company that doesn't factor it in.

BTW: whats wrong with gold mining? Gold shiney! Did I miss a Grauniad feature?

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

It's not environmentally friendly - spewing cyanide through Africa - or people friendly.

(This is vaguely remembered from a Church Times article some years back, and there's probably more to it than that.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Unless you keep it in a sock under the bed, I think that's the best one can hope for...

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I wrote 'that depends' as I really wanted to tick 'something I'll put in a comment'.

I think Charities should write (and regularly review) investment policies. A good charity investment policy should include consideration of returns needed, what access to the money might be needed and so on. The 'ethical' bit should follow naturally from the aims of the charity, and should be specific (although the specific 'we will not invest in gold mining or alcohol production' might lead the organization to invest in a generic 'ethical' product which has those specifics, alongside things like no-arms and no-oppressive-regimes, which the charity does not care about.