Ethical Investment

At Accrue, we recognise the growing importance to our clients of ethical and responsible investing. Put simply, ethical investment seeks to invest in companies which make a positive contribution to the World, and seeks to avoid companies which harm the World, its people and its wildlife. It is, however, difficult for an individual investor to judge whether a particular company is ethical or not. Indeed, since such ethical judgments are of a highly subjective nature a clear and defined personal statement of beliefs needs to be formulated at the outset.

In addition, does one merely exclude investment in specific activities, or take a more proactive stance by looking to invest in companies involved in environmentally sound, socially progressive businesses?

The final choice in making an ethical investment is whether to invest via the 80 or so packaged ethical funds on offer in the UK, or to take the direct investment route in selected companies. The alternative to investing in funds is to invest directly in companies, by applying one’s own individual criteria to one’s stock selection. The bias will undoubtedly be towards smaller and medium sized companies, as most large companies, due to their history and diverse range of activities, fail more stringent screening criteria.

For clients wishing to go down the ethical investment route we are able to assist in individual company and fund selection using data from the EIRiS (Ethical Investment Research Service) and stocks included in the FTSE4Good benchmark.

Please note, the value of your investments and any income derived from them from them may go down and you may get back less than you invested. If you are unsure about the suitability of this service, please contact us for advice.