Anyone who’s been a sustainable and responsible investor for more than 30 years, long before it was popular, knows how difficult it’s been for the approach to gain mainstream acceptance. We’ve all watched with great pleasure as more and more investors have increasingly aligned their investments with their values, but it took quite a while for conventional financial firms to embrace it, and even longer for the regulatory agencies to endorse it.
Last year, my fellow NI advisor James Frazier wrote “Wall Street Wakes Up to SRI” on sustainable and responsible investments becoming a mainstream component of the financial services industry. Substantial asset flows into environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-labeled funds have prompted large conglomerates to buy up boutique socially responsible investing (SRI) companies in the SRI field.
In the last issue of “Investing With Intent,” Brady Quirk-Garvan and James Frazier wrote about cryptocurrency for socially responsible investors. In this article, Ryan Jones-Casey articulates the myriad considerations associated with the rise in demand for electric vehicles, and the parallel rise in demand for the minerals required in current battery technology. While the mining practices for obtaining these minerals including lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, graphite, and copper may be easier to understand than the complex algorithms required for cryptocurrency mining, the environmental and social impacts are no less complex. Both demand serious scrutiny from socially responsible investors.
HOW MONDRAGON BECAME THE WORLD’S LARGEST CO-OP The Mondragon Corporation, a collection of more than 90 co-ops that employ approximately 80,000 people, is an interesting case study in Spain. The industrial-sized conglomerate owned by its workers suggests an alternative future for capitalism. The New Yorker
With holidays around the corner, the end of the year is traditionally a busy time filled with family, friends, and planning for the year to come. This year, get a head start on year-end tasks to ensure your financial situation remains on track, and to position yourself for success in 2023 and beyond.
Patagonia, the well-known apparel and gear company, made headlines in September when it announced that founder and owner Yvon Chouinard and his family have transferred ownership of the company, valued at around $3 billion dollars, primarily to a newly established nonprofit dubbed the Holdfast Collective.
To the vexation of investors everywhere, the market slide, which began in January, continued through the third quarter. U.S. large-company stocks were down 4.9%, small-company stocks were off by 2.2%, foreign stocks slid 9.4%, and bonds lost 4.8%.
Our engagements with lawmakers this quarter focused on deforestation, climate change risk, and workers’ rights. We signed a collaborative investor letter facilitated by Domini Investments in support of the Fostering Overseas Rule of Law and Environmentally Sound Trade (FOREST) Act, which prohibits access to U.S. markets for commodities that originate from illegally deforested land. The bill criminalizes illegal deforestation, increases transparency in reporting companies’ international supply chains, and provides a federal government purchasing preference for deforestation-free products.
