By Joshua Levin You may have voted against U.S. President Donald Trump, protested his policies, and ranted to your friends. Yet most of us are financing him and his agenda. With any typical investment account, 401(k) or pension, Americans indirectly fund their opposition parties and directly finance polarizing activities such as weapons production, private prisons, and […]
Investors Put Over $8B Into Conservation: Can It Continue in the Trump Era?
By Kelley Hamrick On a mild, rainy day in Washington, D.C., America inaugurated its 45th president. The incoming administration represents a fundamental shift from the outgoing Obama administration. And the White House website was updated accordingly. Instead of a clean-energy future, WhiteHouse.gov now announces: “President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the […]
Why is Nobody Talking About Financial Advisors?
By Tyler Jackson If we want environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors to permeate all layers of the financial system, we need to talk about financial advisors. As Jessica Matthews, head of mission-related investing at Cambridge Associates, said at SOCAP16, “We need to think of advisors as a gateway, rather than a gatekeeper to impact […]
Turning Ethical Investing into a Wall Street Disruptor
OpenInvest, a new investing platform that beta-launched at SOCAP16, aims to transform investing by putting the power of ethical investing into each investor’s hand. Sustainable investing is no buzzword – it has been over a decade since the first sustainability-focused investment firms and options emerged. Even as evidence as grown that sustainable investing is actually […]
Invest Cheese and Eat it Too at Maker’s Common
By Julie Fahnestock 310. $310,000, that is. That’s the amount of money Californians have invested into a Direct Public Offering (DPO) for the soon-to-be eatery/market, Maker’s Common. For the last five years, cheese lovers and founders of Mission Cheese and Maker’s Common, Sarah Dvorak, Oliver Dameron and Eric Miller, have positioned their first business — […]
Will Bad Companies Fail? Want To Bet?
Peabody Energy declared bankruptcy last week. Some were surprised; others not so much. One such investor is Dale Wannen, founder of socially-responsible hedge fund Sustainvest Asset Management, who has been shorting Peabody stock for months. Activists cheered when Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, declared bankruptcy last week. These activists have been lobbying endowments […]