Veganism extends far beyond your diet, which is why cruelty-free investing is so essential to maintain a truly vegan lifestyle.
If you’re already vegan, you know that it takes more commitment than most people understand, but that ethically, it’s worth it. You must always be conscious about what you are putting into and on your body which can be expensive and time-consuming. Fortunately, with over 300,000 species of fruits and vegetables, variety isn’t a problem!
But are you putting your money where your mouth is? You understandably want to generate a great return through your investment portfolio, but your investment dollars are directly supporting the companies that you hold stock in. A closer look reveals why transitioning to a vegan investment fund like ‘Demand Vegan‘ is a smart, conscientious goal to pursue and how to do it.
TIP: If you are looking for vegan investing advice, contact Demand Wealth today!
Vegan Companies to Invest in
Vegans are passionate about maintaining a disciplined lifestyle, and justifiably so. Your decision to maintain high ethical standards can and should carry over to your financial investments. This is the whole premise of vegan investing. Why would you support a company through a stock purchase that thrives off of animal cruelty or contributes to environmental decline? Pulling your money out of these companies and supporting companies that maintain strict cruelty-free standards is essential.
Standards for Vegan Portfolio
Before leaping headfirst into vegan investing, establish standards to abide by. Some cruelty-free investing standards include:
- Avoiding any company that uses animal testing, including pharmaceutical, cosmetic and biotech companies
- Eliminating restaurants that serve meat products
- Not investing in food manufacturers that produce meat or that use meat products in their foods
- Avoiding companies that produce or sell leather, wool or silk products
While building a portfolio based on vegan investing stocks with these rules in mind may seem too restrictive at first glance, rest assured that you can build a balanced, growth oriented portfolio while maintaining your convictions.
How to Make Your Vegan Portfolio Thrive
As important as it is to be a conscientious investor, you also have significant financial goals. You can follow several approaches to help your vegan investment portfolio thrive. For example, rather than investing in vegetation stocks of companies selling plant-based foods and related products, you can invest in mutual funds and index funds that are designed for the conscientious investor. With the growing movement to invest ethically, the number of funds available is steadily increasing.
Another idea is to enrich your portfolio of vegan stocks with stocks from unaffiliated industries. For example, a few components of a well-rounded vegan portfolio may include REIT stocks, plant-based food company stocks, CDs, and utility bonds. The need to diversify for risk mitigation remains regardless of where your ethical boundaries lie.
Vegan Investing Does Not Mean Compromising
If you feel caught between achieving your financial goals and maintaining your ethical standards through vegan investing, kick that sentiment to the curb. You can successfully and profitably make ethical investments without compromising your goals. There are more than 3,790 stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange and more than 2,700 listed on the Nasdaq. In addition, more than 8,000 mutual funds and more than 1,500 exchange-traded funds are available for you to consider. While some of these may be eliminated based on your ethical investment standards, many exceptional investment opportunities remain.
It can take time and energy to locate the right investments to add to your portfolio, but you do not need to do it alone.
How to Invest in Vegan Companies
Are you wondering what a vegan portfolio looks like? Each investor has unique objectives, individual risk tolerance, and numerous other factors that influence their ideal portfolio. While you may use these as an inspirational starting point, your portfolio should be customized for you specifically:
A PETA-Based Portfolio: PETA has compiled a searchable list of more than 3,800 cruelty-free companies that you can invest in. Some of these include Tom’s of Maine, Wet ‘n Wild, Paul Mitchell Systems, and others. In addition to searching for specific companies by name, you can narrow down the search based on categories like Cruelty-Free Companies by Product Type, Companies That Do Not Test on Animals, and others.
A Cruelty-Free Investing Portfolio: Cruelty-Free Investment is a non-profit organization that strives to help ethical investors make smart financial decisions. This organization has published a complete list of publicly-traded companies that do and do not test on animals. It also has published the specific criteria used to determine a company’s placement in the list.
‘Demand Vegan’: Utilizing both resources listed above, Demand Wealth has created fully diversified portfolios that screen out all companies engaged in the exploitation of animals. Through a brief questionnaire, we determine how much risk you should take on and align your cruelty-free investing portfolio accordingly. If you would prefer to invest in a vegan portfolio created and managed by a team of industry professionals, this option might be best for you. This is not a segmented portfolio, but rather a fully diversified solution that can be implemented for your COMPLETE investment strategy.
Whether you build and manage your own vegan portfolio, invest with Demand Wealth, or go with another cruelty-free focused company, we hope that this article sheds light on the importance of aligning your investments with your values.
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.