When you invest, it has an impact not just on your finances but on the wider world – for good or for bad. This is because your money gets put to work in the companies, countries and assets in which you’ve invested.
If you aren’t paying attention, you could unwittingly be helping to finance industries that go against your ethical values and undermine your life choices.
For a long time, most people had very little engagement with their investments, mostly because the finance industry made it that way. You had to put faith in fund managers who would too often make decisions based on the potential for profit alone – regardless of the cost to the planet and society.
Usually this meant investing in destructive areas that are driving the world’s biggest problems such as fossil fuels, weapons, tobacco and deforestation.
But the GOOD news is that now, impact investing is giving control back to you – the investor – over exactly where your money is going.
It’s a way to consciously put your money to work tackling the issues you care about most, while also aiming for profit. With impact investing, the benefits to society or the environment are of equal importance to the returns generated. But it’s not an ‘either-or’ situation – you really can have both.
Our new Good Guide to Impact Investing – in partnership with impact investing specialists Ethex and Energise Africa – covers everything you need to know to get started. So dive in! Join us in investing for (positive) impact today.
