This article encourages you to identify what’s important to you when investing ethically, including positive and negative screens and key principles to consider.
The following table shows you two things: the companies or industries many investors generally want to avoid, and those they want to own (for sustainability/ethical reasons).
In the third column, it explains some basic characteristics or principles to consider when assessing companies or investments for the various factors.
Positive & negative company screens
| NEGATIVE SCREEN (COMPANIES TO AVOID) | POSITIVE SCREEN (COMPANIES TO OWN) | THINGS TO CONSIDER (through research) |
| Animal cruelty | Clean tech & innovation | Land rights violations |
| Child labour | Community finance | Corporate governance |
| Excessive consumerism | Energy storage | Employee relations & culture |
| Old growth and native forest logging | Recycling | Labour practices |
| Fossil fuels | Fair trade | Equal opportunity |
| Carbon intensive industries | Community development | Community relations |
| Genetic modification | Organics & clean produce | Integrity of products and services |
| Weapons and armaments | Water management | Carbon emissions |
| Land degradation | Plantation & forestry | Human rights abuse |
| Third world exploitation | Renewable energy | Gender diversity |
| Gambling | Healthcare | Stance on indigenous rights |
| Tobacco | Sustainable design | Management incentives |
| Uranium | Waste disposal and management | Supply chain |
| Mining | Potential environmental impact | |
| Alcohol production |
Using a piece of paper or a notepad on your phone, take a moment to consider which of these industries are most important to you.
Take our free ethical investing course
Then take our free ethical investing course on Rask Education, to learn how you can apply these screens in your investment portfolio.
