From “The Social Justice Investor: Advance Your Values While Building Wealth, Whether a Few Dollars or Millions” by Andrea Longton, CFA
Investors use a process called “investment screening” to determine whether a product aligns with their investor roadmap.
For example, Nicole uses an investment screening tool called “Invest Your Values,” a tool developed by As You Sow, to assess the investments within her portfolio based on their contributions to climate justice, racial justice, and gender justice. When Nicole types the name of her investment into the search field, the “Invest Your Values” screening tool provides a rating (A-F) grading the investment’s portfolio against her values. Over several years, Nicole sells the investments with poor grades and purchases investments with high ratings.
About As You Sow (asyousow.org)
As You Sow is the nation’s nonprofit leader in shareholder advocacy. Founded in 1992. As You Sow harnesses shareholder power to create lasting change by protecting human rights, reducing toxic waste, and aligning investments with values. As You Sow offers several tools and resources that social justice investors may find helpful in creating and maintaining their investment portfolios.
The “Invest Your Values” tool (InvestYourValues.org) enables investors to evaluate the social responsibility of 3,000mutual funds and ETFs, from their fossil fuel impact to gender equality and racial justice. With a list of what you currently own in hand, type the name, ticket, or manager of a fund into the search box. The result will show how that fund scores on an A through F scale for the screen you choose.
As You Sow’s tools dive deeper into the specific impact of your investment decisions. Beyond rating your investment’s performance related to major social justice issues. As You Sow delivers an expanded analysis of each issue, assesses the investment’s carbon footprint, and compares the investment’s financial performance against other investments that offer similar social justice returns.
In addition to screening out poorly performing funds. As You Sow provides investors with search tools designed to identify investments that most closely match your return objectives organized by performance related both to financial earnings and social justice returns.