ETHICAL INVESTMENT BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE (ADVANCED)

 

BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE (ADVANCED) 45. ETHICAL INVESTMENT

 

A Controversial products George Unwin is a fund manager for an ethical investment fund: ‘People and organizations who put their money into our fund want us to invest it in ethical ways. We want to avoid companies that have a bad record on social and environmental issues. We particularly want to avoid certain sectors – tobacco, arms, manufacturers, and nuclear power or uranium producers. So we put our clients’ money into funds that do not invest in these activities. B Socially-responsible investment There is more and more relevant information about ethically run companies that people can put their money into. In the UK, FTSE4Good1 is an index of ethically managed companies. In the US, they have the Dow Jones Sustainability INDEXES2 –DJSI World and DJSI Stoxx, containing companies which are run in a way that takes account of the long-term interests of society and the environment. This concept, known as corporate sustainability, is defined by DJSI in there terms: EXERCISES 45.1 Complete the article, which contains words from A and B opposite, with a-e below, Analysts look at new factors ‘COMPANIES that follow better social and environmental policies are simply better run.’ According to Mathew Kiernan. This in a controversial view. Socially responsible investment has come a long way and gained (1) _____________. The research process which Mt Kiernan and his colleagues have developed at Innovest is aimed at identifying what he describes as the ‘intangible value’ of a company, the factors that are not captured in a traditional balance sheet and which explain the difference between a company’s market value and its asset value.   a. environmental policies are better run. In defence of this argument. Mr Kiernan refers to independent analysis by QED International demonstrating that a portfolio of shares tilted towards Innovest’s preferred stocks would have outperformed the S&P 500 by nearly 29 per cent between December 1996 and December 2001. b. rigour and depth to its analysis. The material is aimed at analysts and company boards than at shareholders with a conscience, the traditional audience for companies carrying out a ‘social audit’.

ANSWER KEY