ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing is a hot topic these days. It feels like everyone is focused on how their portfolio impacts one of those three factors but that is only one piece of the puzzle. Another important factor (which is under the radar), but also very important, is to make sure that your portfolio does not harm animals. Here are three ways to develop an animal-friendly portfolio.
Cruelty Free Investing
A great resource is crueltyfreeinvesting.org which is a non-profit organization that makes it easy to align your investments with your values. Their research team does a lot of the homework for you and it allows you to quickly “see” which companies are “cruel” and which are not. Also, it provides the reasons and rationale behind why a company may be considered cruel. This way you are free to decide for yourself.
PETA Friendly Companies
Another step is to check peta.org to see if the companies in your portfolio do or do not test on animals. PETA maintains a thorough list of these companies in their Caring Consumer Database, where you can search by company and by product to find out if a company supports animal testing. This is a very easy step that allows investors to remove and therefore not support companies that are testing on animals. PETA provides many additional resources regarding animal cruelty and investment ideas and options.
FAIRR
Another valuable resource is fairr.org. With ESG screening becoming a tool many investors and advisors are using to determine their investment choices, FAIRR believes that ESG, as it relates to livestock and factory farming, is not being taken into consideration or being utilized as often as it should be. So they did something about it with their Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index. The investor is also given a score for each company that identifies a company as low risk, medium risk, and high risk based on how a company deals with several risk and opportunity factors. Examples are greenhouse gases, deforestation, water scarcity, animal welfare, antibiotics, and several more. This information could be used to screen out companies that don’t fit an investor’s criteria, as well as find opportunities to support companies that are forward-thinking and working in a more sustainable direction.
How Should I Invest?
You also need to think about what “ethical” investing means to you. Do you want to focus on veganism, such as with companies producing meat alternatives or plant-based food? Or, are issues like ethical work practices and commitments to renewable energy also important? Therefore, investing ethically will depend on how much you want to avoid companies that go against your beliefs.
To participate in the ever growing and rapidly evolving vegan investing space, one should consider a broader and more diversified approach to alleviate some of the potential risk, rather than simply trying to choose an individual stock or two. At Demand Wealth, we have developed the ‘Demand Cruelty Free’ portfolio for this very purpose. It contains cruelty free screened and globally diversified companies that align with your values, risk profile and financial needs.
Finding cruelty free investments can be an arduous task. However, at Demand Wealth, it’s one of our specialties! Click here to open an account or learn more by scheduling a zoom with one our ESG advisors today!
This report is a publication of Demand Wealth. Information presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the author as of the date of publication and are subject to change.