2w ago

is there any way to invest ethically as a sole individual?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/33213155

I don't own much: My savings are around 50K$, money that now sits in the bank doing nothing.
I've been reading about what ETFs to invest into, but even those classified as climate friendly and social responsible include firms such as tesla, facebook, coca cola... not even close to being ethical.
Is there something akin to Michael Burry levels of ethical investment?

27 comments

Money sitting in a bank is being used by the bank to invest in unethical businesses.
I'd suggest to not worry and put almost all of it in vanguard total market index fund (as long as you don't need the money for 20 years). Use the profits to help people.
- I agree with this for 99% of personal investors, but this sounds like what OP is already doing. They're looking for something that goes further to support their beliefs.
  It bothers me to a minor extent to technically contribute to some of these companies. I'm sure most of them do plenty of evil like polluting, wage theft, shady practices, etc. That's how they get on the SP500 I assume.
  I see it as rather capturing the US economy as a whole (or general representation of) and no one is picking favorites, it's just that these are the x biggest traded companies right now. If one drops off, another replaces it. There's no ethical decisions in the choice of companies that make up a market index other than to invest in it or not.
  My ethical choice is prioritizing providing for me and my spouse in old age, and as we have no children, it's up to us to ensure we have that, and this is what I felt was the most responsible decision to achieve that.
  Like you alluded to, I invest in my community by volunteering, and I try to avoid as much consumerism as possible, especially from known shitty companies.
  
  It bothers me to a minor extent to technically contribute to some of these companies.
  Outside of large shareholders like how Musk owns Tesla and sells his stock to fund fascism, buying stock does nothing for companies, ethical or not.
  If you buy shares of an ethical green company, none of that money goes to the company. You bought the shares from someone else. It's like buying a used book of Harry Potter. Absolutely no money goes to JK Rowling.
- Or you could switch from using a bank to a credit union.
  
  Who probably also do business you would personally not like. It's a good suggestion, but it doesn't solve the problem we're talking about.
The only ethical investment is in your community organizations. The return will not be monetary.
This is maybe not what you're looking for, as it's not about growing the money so much as using it to help others, but sharing just in case it's of interest (no pun intended).
https://lendwithcare.org/
My wife has used this a lot - she reads up on microbusinesses who need a loan to develop, lends small sums (like less than £50 or so) to them and after a while usually gets her money back and then reinvests it in a loan to another microbusiness.
It doesn't make a profit for the individual lenders as far as I know, but it's a way to assist people in improving their lives. Kind of cool, I think.
Not sure what you mean by Michael Burry levels of ethical investment, but he has a fund and apparently its most recent disclosed holdings are here. You could just buy (or rather sell, in most cases) those. As you can see 6 out of 7 positions are short - meaning he's betting the stock price will decline - and if you would rather bet against every corporation shorting is an option. But be aware, it's very hard to make money shorting because you're fighting inflation and losses are unlimited. Great way to go bankrupt, especially if you're new to investing.
Beyond that, if you want minimal exposure to some asshole CEO, you can invest in commodities like Gold (e.g. GLD, which is a gold ETF that just holds gold bars, and generally goes up over time) and a billion other things. Bond etfs are another option (but pose some risk of losing money at the moment due to inflation/interest rate fears), and if you wanna be a sort of landlord you can do a REIT. Many of these pay dividends which probably lowers your risk of loss to some degree. The markets are a little nutty right now and I can't think of a single thing that's easy to predict at the moment.
Finally, there's simpler options like high interest savings and CDs, which aren't as terrible of an option as usual because interest rates are higher than inflation in the US for the time being.
There's different ways to be ethical in finances.
One option is to just not be anxious about investing in "bad" companies and make money, but then turn around and donate to charities, vote for aligned politicians, and vote in shareholder elections.
Or you could try to invest in "better" companies. ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) based investing has been politicized and isn't perfect because the scoring can be and is manipulated. But at least it's trying. For example, normally ETFs management companies take the shares that you effectively own and vote along with the board recommendations which often aligns with making the most money over environmental and social concerns, but funds like $VOTE so those voting rights to vote in ways they think are more ethical. Vanguard has $ESGV. Black Rock, a huge investing company, offers voting choice which allows you to pick alignment strategy. For example, you could pick to vote for environmental reasons and they'll influence the company that way. Support for that depends on your brokerage and the fund you own.
You could also pick individual stocks and never buy companies that don't align with your ethics, but that has its own complexities because now you're actively investing and probably not matching market returns.
Ultimately, ethics aren't black and white. I don't try to be perfectly ethical in my investing because it just causes too much anxiety asking is this company bad or good? I invest in broad market funds, I vote in all elections (both shareholder and government elections), I don't invest in individual companies I don't agree with, I invest in some climate friendly ETFs, and I donate to charities that I like.
This situation reminds me of a plot in The Good Place, a TV show, about how >!everybody went to the "bad place" because modern society had so many decisions that had small negative consequences.!<
- Yeah, this is the way.
  Even if you wanted to start an uber-ethical fund, you'd run into problems with what that actually means. For example, would Seal Clubbing Inc. be ethical as a traditional indigenous business giving work in depressed areas, or unethical do to producing animal products? Answers will very heavily from person to person. That's why, in practice, what exists is funds that avoid the most controversial businesses and give everyone else a pass.
  BTW you should probably spoiler that last bit.
Vanguard actually has a MORE ethical index fund - ESGV
Obviously there's no real ethical capitalism, but this is better than most.
https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profile/esgv#portfolio
If you’re skipping ahead of the part where you should take care of yourself, then the only ethical choice in this day and age is “diamond hands”.
Forcing a CEO to remain profitable for the long term.
“Ethical” investment funds are just scams gaming certain metrics to keep their ethical label. Pick a company that provides value to the world, and give it a loan with no expectation that it grow to infinity. Pull out if the new CEO is some whiz kid saying profits are going to go to the moon now.
Sincerely: random internet stranger
I has the same dilemma and ended up investing in government bonds.
As far as people using money for things it wasn't the worst. Returns were less than other investments but I am fine with it.
I'd say buy CDs from a credit union, or municipal bonds (riskier though). In fact maybe the best thing to do for now is to move your banking over to a credit union if there's one you can join, or to a smaller local bank if you can't and you're with one of the big bastards.
After that, in terms of stock, an S&P index fund will have some of the best and most consistent returns, and all you're really betting on is 'line goes up.' One could try to find an individual ethical company or companies, like maybe publicly traded B Corps, but even those I have doubts about.
And real estate isn't getting any cheaper, so if you already own a home, I suppose you could buy another one and rent it at cost. You get equity, and the renters presumably get below market rent. Maintain the property, give the renters right of first refusal if you decide to sell, and sell at marginal markup rather than market rate and you'd probably be doing better than your average landlord. This is the toughest route to follow while not being a bastard.
No personal experience with it, but a little searching turned up M1 Finance. They've been around for 10 years and I see lots of search results for them, so there's at least some legitimacy.
You set up what they call a "pie" made up of "slices". It's a pie chart of your stock and fund choices. You can buy partial shares and it looked like you can buy both funds and individual stocks. No idea if there are minimums, I saw some comments saying they don't have every fund, limited or no bonds, etc, etc.
But you set up your pie, set up automatic investment (you can also do manual or fund just a single slice in a transaction, or various other options), and then it automatically distributes across your pie to the percentages you indicate.
Depending how many slices you plan to set up, it may take a while, but it seems to be a way to do what you want if you're willing to determine all the specific things you want.
I’ve seen banks that offer investment accounts but they only invest in businesses which meet certain ethical standards. It was by the Co-Operative Bank in the UK, which is some community bank thing owned by the customers. Not sure how that works but they do lots of the ethical stuff.
I’ve also seen a charity where you could offer loans to small businesses in developing countries and if they ever became profitable they’d pay you back, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you never saw that again.
- Sadly the Co-op bank nowadays operates pretty much like any other bank.
No. Ethically you need to give your possessions away. Having money is not ethical because other people might not have any money.
How dare you.
I agree with /u/the_abecedarian@piefed.social

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