Profits With Principles: How to Invest Your Savings Ethically

Ethex ISA

So you’ve switched to a green ethical current bank account. For everyday use. But what about the rest of your savings, if you have them? There are a few choices on where to invest your savings, and use them to do good.

Ethex (green and ethical investment opportunities)

Ethex lists investment opportunities from pioneering grass roots organisations to ethical for-profit businesses. Then connects to empower and build resilient communities.

This is through a process known as screening. Basically, ethical investments don’t invest in:

  • Weapons
  • Animal testing
  • Fossil fuels
  • Gambling
  • Tobacco
  • Pornography

Ethical investments instead invest in:

  • Community finance
  • Renewable energy
  • Social enterprise companies

So you can switch your savings over yourself using . Or for larger amounts, have an ethical investment company manage the process for you.  To protect your savings, ensure where you invest is covered Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Ecology Building Society (funds eco-building projects)

Ecology Building Society offers a range of savings accounts, with funds used to provide mortgages to do up old derelict properties (including installing solar panels or install draught-proofing). Or build eco-friendly new homes from straw bale or cob

Just open your Ecology Building Society account and request the switch in the app (or by phone/online) and the service will securely move your salary, regular payments and direct debits in seven days. It has several savings accounts:

  • Everyday Savings (save from £1)
  • Ethical Savings Bonds (save from £500)
  • Online Cash ISA (tax-free from £10)
  • Fixed Rate Cash ISA (tax-free from £1)
  • Fixed Term Deposit Account (minimum £50,000)
  • Business and Charity Deposit Account (minimum £50,000)

Charity Bank (funds community projects)

Charity Bank is like having a savings account and donating to local charities at the same time. Because your savings are used to invest in small community projects.

The account opening process is really simple, then your money can get to work, creating change for local communities. So far Charity Bank has donated over £629 million to over 1,460 causes nationwide.

You can open a personal, business, charity or credit union savings account. Some examples of what these savings have funded:

  • Transforming an old hotel into supported living for 11 vulnerable adults
  • Funding the headquarters of an Air Ambulance
  • Funding a refuge for families escaping domestic abuse
  • Helping to renovate social housing properties

Shared Interest Foundation (funds Fair Trade farmers)

Shared Interest Foundation is a building society with a difference. You pool small savings with others, and these are used to fund Fair Trade loans to farmers (mostly coffee, cocoa, shea nuts and handicrafts) to build their own businesses abroad, for independence and empowerment.

Over 11,000 people nationwide are helping to fund millions of people abroad, mostly women.

You an open an account from £100 or pool with up to four other people. Or open a child account which becomes theirs when they reach 16.

Ethical Investors (profits to good causes)

Ethical Investors can makeover your portfolio and has given over £600,000 to good causes, via its own ethical screening criteria. It can also advise on pensions and hand you over to discretionary managers to tailor bespoke investment portfolios.

Where else to invest your savings?

The Social Justice Investor (make wise financial choices)

the social justice investor

The Social Justice Investor is a book for anyone who invests money in banks or the stock market. It’s American, but most of the info can apply elsewhere. Each investment however small has impact on the planet. Whether you have £100 or £100 million to invest, you have the power to change the world for better.

This book shows how to reconcile your financial wellbeing with a desire for a better world. All investment on stock markets has risk (never invest more than you could afford to lose) but there are also safer ways to invest smaller amounts.

Learn how to find good financial advice and decide where to put your savings in this wonderful book.

Author Andrea Longton is a professional social justice investors who specialises in community development finance.  She has raised over $1 billion for social justice investments in the USA and advised on another $1.5 billion worldwide. She also manages her own family’s social justice investment portfolio.

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