More and more people are getting into "impact" investing, that is, investing in companies that have a desired social, environmental or moral impact.
For example, some people concerned about the environment invest in clean energy companies.
A whopping $3.74 trillion, or 11 percent of total U.S. assets under management, went to "sustainable" (synonymous with environmental impact) investing in 2012, according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, The New York Times reports
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That represents a 400 percent rise from 1995.
The Times offers several recommendations to those who want to make impact investments.
- "Go slowly.
- "Find a guide, often in the form of an adviser similarly interested in impact investing."
- Take a broad view of what constitutes an impact investment. In addition to more standard social metrics, you might look at how a company stands on employee turnover, executive pay, board diversity and legal issues.
- Don't forget about returns. Sometimes there's a tradeoff between impact investing and returns.
Former Silicon Valley executive Karl "Charly" Kleissner is now an impact investor. "The purpose of wealth cannot simply be to create more wealth," he told The London Telegraph.
"I wanted to make the assets I’d created work in a sustainable way. Our financial advisers found it difficult to understand at first, because they normally deal with people whose idea of investing their money is just to make more money. But we wanted to do something different."
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