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I read with interest the Money Managment article on ethical investment by Jason Spits and the adviser comments (Money Management, April 13).
I read with interest the Money Managment article on ethical investment by Jason Spits and the adviser comments (Money Management, April 13).
The trusts and superannuation fund offered by Australian Ethical Investment, which has a strong environmental focus (and is an excellent performer), were surprisingly omitted. This seemed especially strange since Mr Spits referred to the elevation of environmental issues just over a decade ago as the beginning of this new conscious-ness - exactly the time Australian Ethical's first trust was launched.
According to Money Management, returns for the year to 31 March 2000 were:
Australian Ethical Equities Trust: 37.3% (7th in its category of 51 over one year and 11/43 over 3 years - Industrial Equity).
Australian Ethical Large Companies Share Trust: 36.5% (3rd in its category of 69 over one year - Diverse Equity).
Australian Ethical Balanced Trust: 11.5% (1st in its category of 16 over one year and 8/13 over 3 years - Multi Sector 50)
Clearly, Australian Ethical Investment has been able to more than effectively compete on the basis of returns with conventional funds.
Australian Ethical has been able to achieve this, and differentiate itself from others, via its pro-active principles which support over 80 diverse environmental and socially responsible investments. Its particular focus is environmental technologies. In this way, it goes beyond simply applying a negative screen to avoid a few of the so-called “badies” such as uranium mining, tobacco, gambling or rainforest/old growth logging.
The growing band of ethical investors want to be sure that money invested won't compromise the type of world they want to retire in.
An excellent coverage of the topic and the issues can be found in the recently revised book "Ethical Investment", published by Choice Books (Australian Consumers Asso-ciation).
James Thier
Director, Australian Ethical Investment
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