Ethical or socially responsible investments dates back to the Quaker movement in the 18th century and has been practiced to good effect since then against perceived evils such as tobacco, alcohol, weapons, apartheid and war. In recent times ethical investment have focused on environmental issues and on the rights of indigenous people around the world and is a valuable tool when other forms of persuasion fail – money talks.
In August one of the world's largest institutional investors, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, sold all its shares in a Malaysian timber corporation, Samling Global, after an investigation by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance found the corporation responsible for systematic illegal logging on Borneo.
The probe was conducted by the Government Pension Fund's Council on Ethics and documented "extensive and repeated breaches of the licence requirements, regulations and other directives in all of the six concession areas that have been examined. Some of the violations constitute very serious transgressions, such as logging outside the concession area, logging in a protected area that was excluded from the concession by the authorities in order to be integrated into an existing national park, and re-entry logging without Environmental Impact Assessments."
The Norwegian Minister of Finance, Sigbjorn Johnsen, said that Samling's forest operations in the rainforests of Sarawak and Guyana contribute to illegal logging and severe environmental damage“ and he had therefore chosen to exclude the company from the government's investment portfolio.
Samling is one of the companies that are responsible for the large-scale logging of primary rainforests and for the destruction of the livelihood of indigenous communities who depend on the forests for survival.
If you are lucky enough to have money in an investment account you should have a word with your bank or broker and find out where your money is invested. There are many options for ethical investments available to Irish people and, by switching your investment, you can get a good return financially, socially and environmentally – the so called triple bottom line.
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