Ethical investors get together
Ethical investing has been given a shot in the arm with the creation of the Ethical Investment Association set to be launched later this month.
Ethical investing has been given a shot in the arm with the creation of the Ethical Investment Association set to be launched later this month.
Co-president Ross Knowles says the non-profit body will promote the concept and practice of ethical investments.
As an industry body, it will accept memberships from any ethical investment pro-fessionals as well as community groups and academics.
Knowles says there was no pressing need to represent this area of investments but rather the association was a way to lift awareness.
"There is not a large need but everything like this helps. There are now enough professionals in this area to combine efforts to more effectively promote ethical in-vestments," Knowles says.
"Our interests are very directed and we think this will be popular as there are probably more people working in this area then we believe," Knowles says.
The association will be based on a similar group in the US, the Social Investment Forum, which Knowles says has been effective in that market in forwarding the aims of ethical investing.
"The take home message about ethical investment in the US is that it is a substan-tial market which will develop here. There is also a wide range of choice and we are also getting to that stage here in Australia," Knowles says.
Knowles, who is the managing director of Ethinvest, will hold the leadership posi-tion with Janice Carpenter from Ethical Investment Services.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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