Sustainability of a company doesn’t really address whether profits are made from the stupidity of others. A quick scan of ESG funds shows holdings like Pepsi, Visa, Disney. It’s pretty much impossible to invest in an index fund and not take advantage of stupid people. IMO it’s gotta be good enough not to specifically target people
It is pretty much impossible to have any fond that is not using unethical companies (make money from powerless people or damaging them) or those that make money from stupid people.
That is lao in part because of how big and diverse today's megacorps are. Company X is very responsible. But they also hold 14% of a weapon factory?
Or do you have Nestlè in there? The company that steals the water from under villages in 3rd world countries (or sometimes in 1st world too) to sell them bottled water when their wells no longer work?
Totally do in the first world. It's a big deal here in MI.
Obviously there's no such thing as 100% sustainable in a capitalist world. But the funds I've invested in have set their own clear criteria of what they will and will not invest in. That means they have excluded, for example, any companies that have to do with tobacco, and certain types of weapons like landmines and bioweapons. They also exclude some companies that are extremely polluting. My impression is that their research is thorough. All in all they exclude roughly 10%. That's not enough but it's a good start. For example, they exclude 15% of the companies in the MSCI World index which represents 10% of the value.
I enjoy a nice evening at a hookah bar smoking and sipping beer. I don’t see what’s immoral about tobacco companies profiting off of that. Or why alcohol seems to get a free pass when it causes crazy health problems as well.
I would prefer not to invest in alcohol either if I had the choice, but I haven't found a sober fund yet.
Alcohol (and fastfood companies, etc etc) are different than tobacco companies though. While consuming alcohol is not healthy, most users are not addicted to it. Only a minority of the users suffer from addiction. It's an unfortunate side effect. Tobacco on the other hand is addictive by design. Almost all users are hooked after using it for a few times (I don't know the exact numbers but I've seen figures suggesting teenagers often get addicted after trying a cigarette less than 5-10 times) The tobacco industry is actually doing research to find out how to increase the addictiveness of their products. In my book that's pretty evil.
Also, from a danger-to-others perspective, while of course a person with an alcohol addiction is a huge burden to their environment, tobacco users literally pollute other people's air with toxic fumes. I believe that everyone has the theoretical right to inhale toxic fumes (although freedom of choice is difficult with addiction) but you also poison other people. This is a sensitive topic for me, because I suffer from an auto immune disease, have suffered from it since I was a teenager. When I asked my doctor how I could possibly suddenly get this disease, she replied 'are your parents smokers?' Exposure to second hand smoke is one of the biggest risk factors for my illness, after from first hand smoke (I'm a never smoker) .