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I’m going tell you up front: I’m divided about this topic. As an investor, I sometimes forget the overall impact of my actions. After all, the very first thing I’m interested in is making money. The reason why I invest money is obviously to use this vehicle to get richer, to reach my financial independence, and to retire wealthy and happy.

However, investing is a lot more than that. Our actions have an influence in life whether it be the way we consume, the way we raise our children, or the way we act in public or at home. When you invest, you also have an impact on the rest of the world. You might want to tell me that you and I won’t influence the market or the way business is done. You might as well tell me it doesn’t matter if you keep your car running for 20 minutes during winter time because you like your seat warm and cozy. After all, what’s one car running for nothing when there are millions of trucks rolling for 10 hours a day on our roads? I tend to disagree.I think we all have a role to play and that our actions have consequences, as little as they are.

Investing & Values

Over the past decade, various investing firms tried to find a way to market socially responsible investments. They packaged funds and ETFs with what they call “socially responsible companies” or “ethical investments”. Back in 2010, I even wrote a whole series about socially responsible investing. During this series, I’ve discovered something that distracted me from investing in those kind of packaged solutions.

The problem about ethics is that everybody has its own definition. We will all agree to the “obvious”. A company is making T-shirts in Pakistan and using children as slave labors in their factories? This is definitely a no-go. However, what happens with an oil company? What if the company follows protocols and respects both regulations and their employees? I know, now we have people that will nod and others that will cringe.

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