Ethical Investing Quotes

We combine fiscal responsibility with social responsibility.

Move your personal investments and retirement funds to socially responsible investment (SRI) funds that support only those corporations that uphold higher standards of behavior. Returns on SRI funds are usually equal to, if not better than, many of the well-known traditional mutual funds.

I would ask: Given the nature of free-market capitalism - where the rule is to rise to the top at all costs - is it possible to have a financial industry hero? And by the way, this is not a pop-culture trend we're talking about. There aren't many financial heroes in literature, theater or cinema.

Capital as such is not evil. It is its wrong use that is evil. Capital, in some form or other, will always be needed.

I actually am a capitalist, and I believe in shareholders. But I believe in them as a result of what I do, not as a reason for what I'm doing. The same with profits - profits alone cannot be an objective. It has to have a purpose.

The U.K. is open for investment, but not for exploitation.

There is an unwritten social rule now that you can harangue the wealthy to give money away, but you mustn't ask how the money was made. There are no galas celebrating the money people knew better than to seek. Charity begins after profit.

Why would you invest in a company which is out of synch with the needs of society, that does not take its social compliance in its supply chain seriously, that does not think about the costs of externalities or of its negative impacts on society?

People who are tired of K Street corruption and Wall Street greed are ready for Main Street Values.

The important thing in investing is to be true to your compass.

There's a myth out there that you have to genuflect at the altar of quarterly earnings. But it's a false choice that you can either be a good fiduciary or promote values such as environmental sustainability.

While one should never underestimate the ability of risk-besotted financiers to wreak havoc, the real threat to capitalism isn't unfettered financial cunning. It is, instead, the unwillingness of executives to confront the changing expectations of their stakeholders.

Companies that are owners and producers of oil, natural gas, or coal reserves are excluded from our mutual funds. As inverstors we are not simply passive actors. Each investment is a decision to allocate capital. We should be mindful or the wider implications. This is particularly true for climate change, which places all life at risk. We are now living on a planet whose atmosphere has changed int one that no human being has ever experienced before.

Warren Buffett has shown you can be very, very successful without being rapacious, while still being honest, without engaging in constant legal battles.

We cannot gamble with anything so sacred as money.

Not all private equity people are evil. Only some.

Over the past several decades, a growing number of investors have been choosing to put their money in funds that screen companies for their environmental and labor records. Some socially responsible investors are starting to add free expression and privacy to their list of criteria.

Impact investment is an important business driver, and more importantly, it is a business driver because clients want it.

Sharia has become an increasingly significant force in American capitalism, thanks to the embrace by Wall Street and the U.S. government of so-called Sharia-Compliant Finance. Indeed, this country's taxpayers now own the largest purveyor of sharia-compliant insurance products in the world: AIG.

Impact investing has become a broad umbrella that includes all investing with a focus on both financial return and social impact, but in its best form, impact investing prioritizes impact over returns and achieves outcomes that traditional investing cannot.

I believe in humanitarian capitalism, and there are good people on Wall Street.

I wouldn't want to manufacture cigarettes. But if I owned - we do own Costco. Do they sell them? Yes. So I don't have a problem owning stock in that. But I just wouldn't want to - I wouldn't want to do it myself. I basically think, if anything is sufficiently antisocial, society should do something about it. But that's a separate question. But - and I don't think there's any company that I have seen that's 100 percent pure.

A highly developed stock exchange cannot be a club for the cult of ethics.

I used to trade stocks online, and I kind of felt gross, like, all I'm doing is making money off other people's creativity, and I'm not creating anything myself.

At Domini, we believe it's possible to make money and make a difference at the same time.