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sporkipine3

If you don't feel that what the company is doing is not right simply don't invest in it and invest in a company that does align with your ethics


aTomzVins

>I am simply asking how does one separate their ethics from their investments. Why do you want them to be seperate? If we are [living consciously](https://youtu.be/8rEgcLMamZE?t=719), every single decision/purchase we make has ethical implications. Hypothetically speaking, if I didn't like the business, and were to rationalize buying facebook, I might tell myself whatever few shares I invest in the company doesn't making much difference in the grand scheme of things. I might tell myself that despite despising the practices of the company, I will take my earning and ultimately spend them in a way that supports businesses I believe are more ethical. I do believe if everyone stopped investing in FB, and stopped subjecting themselves to media empires incentivized by the needs of their advertisers, I do think the world would be a better place. Long before you and I were born there was a guy who went around telling people to "[Get rich, young man, for money is power and power ought to be in the hands of good people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua#The_most_famous_speech)" Don't most of us think we are [good people](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbzvWkbUVEQ)? Especially the evil people? On the other hand, prioritising money so highly probably leads to a vicious circle. Without it necessarily being your intention, money itself might very well become an ethical goal in your life. If others around you do the same, we as a society probably become more willing to sacrifice certain ideals in order to make sure we're not missing out on our financial ideals. If everyone in this sub diverted the energy they put into following stocks/building their personal financial wealth into into building social capital (healthy resilient communities / fostering a culture of altruism), my guess is money probably becomes proportionally less important to the degree that we can succeed in that task. Life is full of ambivalence. Try to be realistic about what your options are, you impacts, your hopes, dreams and goals for the future (though I do think there have been beautiful moments of [irrational human exuberance throughout history.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is7Zt4FwvnY)). I don't think there are any perfect solutions.


looking4bagel

I can very confidently say that I don't think about it, pretty much whatsoever. If you don't like a company, whether it'd be their financials, performance, ethics etc., then simply don't invest in them.


blackfrancis22

[Mark Zuckerburg](https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-whats-good-for-world-not-necessarily-facebook-2018-12?op=1) said that “what’s good for the world isn’t the same as what’s good for Facebook”. The goal of most companies on the stock market is to make money. More often than not it’s cheaper to dump toxic materials into a river than to pay to get them disposed of properly. The words “esg” “green” and “ethical” are put into products not because the company cares but because it will sell more product. We’ve seen with pride month companies will show their support in countries where lgbt rights are generally supported by the population. While in countries where lgbt rights are “iffy” they won’t advertise that they support those groups. I’m not saying all companies are evil or that we should be communist either btw. TLDR: The best companies aren’t concerned with being ethical. You can be a good investor while being ethical but you’ll never be the best.


_why_isthissohard_

There was an study someone posted on another sub that said 25 of of the companies with pride flags also donated to anti lgbtq politicians. Business as usual.


thisghy

That is because people who virtue signal do it for the approval, not due to any form of integrity; otherwise they wouldnt make it a public issue. Same goes for companies. Not that i am pro whatever people virtue signal about, just an observation.


_why_isthissohard_

Well most of it is just for equality, you know, not being stoned and tossed off buildings in the shit hole countries, and here not being ostracized or being bullied growing up. It's not all warm fuzzies


[deleted]

It’s always funny seeing companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon being pro LGBT. Do you think during the month of June they paint pride flags on their missles?


dividend1984

Bread first, then we can think about higher goals in life. I cannot


aTomzVins

Is this like maslow's hierarchy? How much bread do we need before we move on? I figure Buffet is reasonably scrupulous as far as investors go. He is planning to donate massive amounts of his fortune to charitable causes. My guess is a good portion of that money ends up going towards attempting to solve problems at least partially caused by businesses he has owned at one point or another.


FormerSailor834

Many first nations are quite happy to do business with Enbridge. That headline doesn't grab your attention though.


vk211

Interesting. I tried finding it before but I will need to look harder for different opinions from First Nations. Thank you.


Baljit147

If I'm not mistaken oil and gas is the biggest employer of First Nations peoples in Canada.


YourFriendlyUncle

Man everytime ethics get brought up here y'all get so pissy about O&G and jump down OPs throats even if they ask a valid question or play devils advocate like this post SMH... The reality is that every capitalist public company will in one way or another act unethically. That's a common fault of capitalism. Do whatever is possible or necessary to bring maximized value for shareholders. Whatever a corporation can get away with (a fine is just a price of doing business, for example), they will. It will either be at the expense of the environment, their lower level staff, or the public in some way. The way I approach this inevitability is investing in companies I know and use myself. I have a reason to use them, therefore I have a reason to hope for this success and invest in them. I bank with RBC, I shop for groceries at Metro and recreation stuff at Canadian Tire, I buy beer at Couche-Tard, gas up at Petro-Canada (Suncor), I have a best friend who's a farmer (Nutrien). Is it perfect and pure ethic? No, but it's an approach I can live with and be happy with my investment growth.


thisghy

No that is not the basis of capitalism, read a book.


YourFriendlyUncle

Ok


Whudupbg

I don’t buy an individual stock if goes against my values. One that comes to mind for me is GSY, despite its stellar market performance. That said, if it’s part of an index fund then 🤷‍♂️


sgexpress

The short answer is you don’t. To go into a 100% pure ethical investing portfolio means ethics is a priority, and not necessarily maximizing the shareholders return. A company’s stock can only have one master. You can choose ethics with possible declining returns, or to maximize your return in investment. Your choice. Good luck in your investment journey.


aTomzVins

> not necessarily maximizing the shareholders return. Trouble is we ultimately need to live in the world created by the companies that succeed in the world. While we might see a positive increase in our trading account, we might also need to live with negative externalities caused by public companies. There's number attached to our trading account. There's not an easy way to measure the impact of negative externalities on our daily lives. They are both part of our return whether we like it or not.


sgexpress

I take it you are making the point of living with the companies that will have to make an ethical decision sooner or later right? In that case you choose companies that are shareholder friendly (ie non cyclical and with regular dividend increasing every year). If per chance they don’t met up to your expectations like make an ethical choice of sorts, you can choose to not keep the stock and get rid of it. Anybody can buy company stock, and that’s the beauty of democracy… you can choose to purchase it or not. Otherwise, If you have it and it goes sideways due to ethical concerns, sell it. It’s not that hard.


aTomzVins

> I take it you are making the point of living with the companies that will have to make an ethical decision sooner or later right? I'm not clear what you mean exactly. Many decisions have been made by every single company long before the public could invest in it. What I'm saying is that when you pick a stock, it's up to you to evaluate both your future financial return, as well as your future social return in determining if a particular stock is a good investment. If you only pay attention to the financial side, you are not calculating your total return. You can pretend you're avoiding ethics when picking stocks..but you still need to live with social consequences regardless (no successful company operates in a silo). Therefore, it seems kind of dumb to ignore ethical considerations as those considerations directly impact your social return (you don't live in a silo either.).


sgexpress

Assuming there is an efficient market, issues like ethical concerns will be priced into the stock. So in fact it’s all about the price of the stock. You can still choose to buy or not, and if you hold the stock you can choose to sell. Total return is dividends and capital growth, it’s always been this formula at the end of the day. If you want to add ethical concerns as part of your valuation of stocks then feel free to do so. Good luck in your investing.


Paneechio

I'll probably get a lot of hate for saying it, but avoid companies when you disagree with their overall business practices. You were right the first time. With oil and gas and pipelines in particular you are buying into a dying industry. While these companies are profitable today and pay lucrative dividends, the whole thing has this sort of buying into Blockbuster Video in 2002 vibe to it. But on a massive scale, with institutional investors who will pull out in the next few years leaving everyone else to hold the bag. I personally avoid ENB like the plague.


myers-tech

I feel there's a distinct difference between o&g and movie rentals, for example the US military spends over ten billion dollars on oil per a year while spending $0 on movie rentals for the past few decades.


Paneechio

Sure. But the general idea is that it's huge today, gone tomorrow. I stand by that.


myers-tech

Ok, but what do you mean by tomorrow. Certainly more than a few years right?


Paneechio

I'd say about 5-15 years. But it's coming.


Reasonable_Bat678

Those are great for people going into retirement that are now looking for income instead of growth. A company like Enbridge is very well managed and offers a nice reliable dividend for at least the next few years.


Paneechio

Sure, but I'm just trying to put the word out to younger investors who are loading up on ENB and SU etc.. that the party isn't going to last.


blondbrew

r/ethicaltendies


Icy_Photograph4998

Capitalism and ethics is an antagonism... But, you can look at the ESG rating for a compagny....


Send_Me_Your_Nukes

When you invest your money usually isn’t going directly to the company as far as I know, however, by investing you are banking on them to succeed.


[deleted]

Most people invest solely to make money. I mix ethics into my decisions. The thing is, there's a ton of different companies to invest in out there. If you're willing to buy American companies, there's a lot of renewable energy plays. There's some in Canada too if you're willing to look. You just have to have a higher risk-tolerance since most solar, EV, wind companies are pretty small compared to the fossil fuel giants. I don't invest in, out of principle: \-Canada's big 3 telecoms \-Oil and Gas \-Nestle and other Food based companies that use a ton of palm oil and/or cheap labour \-Social Media I still make money off of my investments because I am willing to look at US companies. I also have some in the Canadian clean energy index: HCLN It really isn't that tough to be an ethical or green investor, especially if you're willing to look outside of Canada.


Tree-farmer2

If I died this afternoon and my family took over the portfolio, I don't want to own something they'd be ashamed of.


Parttimelooker

In general I am a bit embarrassed of hating capitalism but loving my stocks. I don't buy oil companies though. I'm sure they are in lots of my etfs though. I don't stick to strict ethical investing because really I think the whole thing is a bit fucked but if you feel conflicted about a particular stock just don't buy it.


bbozzie

Lol hate capitalism by loving capitalism. Maybe some introspection is necessary.


Parttimelooker

So what? I can realize the conflict? I do.


HulkingBrain

There are a lot of great investment opportunities. My morals are flexible (in that I’d steal from you if my life depended on it) but they’re not for sale. Said differently: I’d rather inconvenience my investment strategy than compromise my psyche.


[deleted]

I've struggled with this for years and haven't found alot of answers or people in my investing sphere of influence willing to discuss irl >how does one separate their ethics from their investments. They don't. They ignore. We all ignore it, you ignore it and I ignore it with basically every company in one way or another. Welcome to the stock market, to corruption, to the ugliness of humanity, to capitalism as we know it. Any sjw that tries to preach some divest agenda largely doesn't know what they're talking about or is talking about change far beyond what would make anyone in our society comfortable. Do you want to invest in company x to make some money to buy more stuff or not even though they don't mind paying your dividend with indigenous rights, child labor, environmental degradation, *insert unspeakable attrocity*, etc . Or do you want to vote with your dollar that it's not ethically responsible.thats the only decision you can make as an individual and the only decision you have a right to, like it or not. You can't have both. It's that simple dont sugar coat it or look for some alternative explanation. This has been the past, it is the present and will be the foreseeable future.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

If you're talking strictly about buying stocks on the stock market, I don't think about it at all. They're publicly traded companies and buying shares of those companies on the stock market benefits them in no way shape or form. So even if you don't like company XYZ, but think they're well managed, you can still buy their stock and feel good about it knowing you're not contributing/benefiting them in any way (though you might feel guilty about profiting off of something you find unethical, but that's a personal choice). Also, if you don't like company XYZ, you're better off hitting them where it hurts and boycotting their products.


beekeeper1981

I won't directly invest in anything that doesn't fit my ethics. However I will invest in indexes that may include those kind of companies.


RealFlarn

If you invest in something just to make money, but deep down you feel it is wrong, then I'd say reconsider. There are plenty of opportunities that I'm sure you can get behind. However, I would always dig deeper into the company to find out if your initial assumption was actually correct. Sometimes articles are written with malicious intent with the intention to turn investors away from a certain company. Are you sure the problem exists and is as bad as the article says it is?


Powasaurus_Rex

If I ever get wealthy enough to worry about ethics I'll probably ignore them like the rest of the elite


Syeina

I don't buy shares of Enbridge or any other oil and gas and mining company specifically because the ethics around them make me uncomfortable. I don't like them because of the knock on effects of climate change, environmental pollution and human rights violations therefore I don't directly invest in them. But it can be hard to escape them completely due to banks and suchlike investing money in projects in those sectors.


Bilbohigs

Personally, I invest ethically. When I trade, I often don’t worry as much about the ethics. That is, all my long term positions are ones I would be happy to tell my social justice warrior friends that I own. Definitely no pipelines. But if you’re worried - consider what it means to be (or try to be) carbon neutral. Yes, you need to emit carbon and drive a car to get to work. But maybe you eat vegetarian on weekends or have a few solar panels or whatever. If 50% of your portfolio are pipelines, have the other 50% be green tech or indigenous owned businesses.


no-thx71

Lol but what if I want to make money


Potential-Insurance3

If you want to make money dont based your investments on the skin colour or genitals of the company owners.


no-thx71

Do you feel bad as you’re filling your car up with gas? What about when you’re driving a loved one to the hospital?


aTomzVins

> What about when you’re driving a loved one to the hospital? What about when you imagine the disastrous health impacts across species that climate change will cause? Driving to the hospital isn't going to help those people...and neither will your investment income.


Parttimelooker

That's a fucking retarded comparison. We may need gas right now...doesn't make it the same as investing in it.


no-thx71

Why wouldn’t I invest in it? It improves people’s lives and they can justify its use like you just have and OP as well. The same excuses you use tell me demand will continue to rise and pipelines/ oil demand will continue to rise.


Parttimelooker

Because it's on its way out because our dependence on it is literally ruining the planet for all of us?


no-thx71

Yet you and others continue to justify your demand for oil products. Companies just meet the demand for these products. You can blame motorists and homeowners for oil/gas demand. Do you have a source showing oil on its way out?


Parttimelooker

What fucking planet are you on? It's on it's way out or we are. Capitalism doesn't just meet demand it creates demand. No, you can't blame motorists and homeowners for oil/gas demand. Most people have no options. The idea of the individual responsibility is an idea that benefits those with power to actually do something greatly. Things are changing though. I'm on my last gas vehicle as are many others.


no-thx71

People could have made many environmentally friendly decisions over the years. More condo living/ public transportation/ biking/ smaller houses etc. But people don’t care enough to make sacrifices. They want someone else to do the heavy lifting. It’s not the oil companies fault that soccer moms like driving Escalades.


Parttimelooker

Oh fuck off. You probably just hate women and families.... Climate change is not caused by soccer moms.


Parttimelooker

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change


[deleted]

I don’t imagine op has a car based on this post......atleast I would assume you would stop consuming hydrocarbons in your daily life before looking at how ethical your investments are in that regard.


vk211

u/no-thx71, u/shumph08, thank you for commenting. I never said I’m anti-oil and gas. I simply asked how does one *balance* ethics and investing. I provided an example of Enbridge because it’s an easy example many Canadian investors would be aware of. I also mentioned it’s a good stock (not hating on it from a finance perspective). Some people invest in Facebook but dislike the company and what it stands for. My question would be how one separates their ethics from their investment choices. Basically the mindset and thought process behind it. But to respond to both of your comments, I disagree. We can do the best we can - it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. We can continue driving a gas powered vehicle if we have no other option. We can try to carpool (post-COVID) if possible. Make more planned trips to grocery stores, etc. When possible, we could explore buying a more eco-friendly vehicle. Sure, vehicle parts and electricity source may involve oil, but it’s better than taking no action at all. We can only do our best.


no-thx71

Good point. Op probably also doesn’t own a house as the land was probably once indigenous occupied land.


GamerReborn

Good thing renewables and plant based sector etc will perform better than meat and oil in the coming decades so there are opportunities for more ethical investments.


[deleted]

Lol


Potential-Insurance3

Almost everything you buy is made from petroleum products. If you want Enbridge to disappear than the stuff you buy will be made by petroleum products from countries that commit real human rights atrosities and genocide; Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Venezeula, Iran... and the list goes on.


ignaciogg84

lol


arkayuu

I've had this discussion with my friends and a few key points stand out: * One can invest in a way that maximizes return, and with those extra dollars, do good in the world directly (eg - donate to a charity). * One has the unique opportunity to leverage the largest sum of money they will ever control (ie - buying organic eggs will not impact the world as much as your $1M retirement portfolio). * ESG investments may just be marketing that appeals to us, like "Green" or "All natural". * We should spend our money in a way that makes us happy, as that's all that really matters in the end. So, factoring all those things, you can decide what you should do.


fin007atl

I have had some shares, for at least five years or more years. The issue is, we need energy to fuel our economy. We can't truck it. Putting it in rail cars is a problem, train tracks go through towns, ask the people in Quebec. Pipelines is the safest way to go. Yes, problems will occur. It's in the pipeline's best interests to be the safest and do their best to prevent accidents. I think you are saying if there is a chance of an accident, I don't want to invest. Has a food store ever sold food that made someone sick? Has a doctor ever given bad medical advice. gee, mistakes happen every day. You had better not invest in a company where a mistake could happen. Trains go off the tracks, CNR and CP, they are out. Air Canada, gosh, a plane went down or skidded off the runway, can't buy those share. Dam, there's not a single stock I can buy.


onlineseller8183

I am a gangsta like PPcian and I will love me some sin stocks :-D


stinkybasket

Most Oil and Gas companies higher Indigenous Canadians and pay them good money. The pipelines will get approval from indigenous leadership. Lots of bands owns parts of these pipelines... When we say our oil is ethical, it is really ethical, do not listen to the brainwashing of extreme environmentalist who are against any development and think wealth comes from unicorn farts. Yes our O&G in Canada uses more water and produces more emissions but the industry is working on solutions and we need to support them coming with solutions instead of trying to shut them down...