One of the key tenets of The Clean Money revolution is “we are our money”. If we have more than we need for basics, we decide where to put it.
Looking the other way and allowing mutual funds, wealth managers and financial institutions to decide where our money goes is not morally defensible.
We would not dump our garbage on the sidewalk or kill people so we could have cooler cars, houses or gadgets.
In the same way we can’t claim moral detachment from the stocks and bonds we invest in. If the companies we own a stake in are dumping garbage or hurting people, we bear responsibility.
For investors and foundations, there’s an ongoing seismic shift in awareness about the current wealth management system, and the kind of closed loop that it is. Many, many clients are pushing for “better”— for placements aligned with who they are as people, investments that they or their children can believe in.
People want their charitable foundation to no longer be embarrassed about its newly visible, no longer hidden portfolio, with its awkward investments and reliance on fossil fuels, weapons manufacturing, privatized prisons, biased or racist organizations, toxics, chemical food, or dangerous, underpaid worker conditions.
Those who don’t pay attention to the imperative to go cleaner are going to be outdated and left behind, scratching their heads wondering what happened.
I urge wealth-holders and wealth managers to lead us with a crucial part of the clean money overhaul. We need new products, screens, shareholder activism, better companies, better practices, and options outside the too few currently available.