Green investing and climate risk basics:
- The Responsible Investment Association (RIA) provides educational materials and trend reports about the responsible investment landscape in Canada.
- Ethiquette aims to help individual investors as they venture into the realm of responsible investment, providing practical information from how to talk to your financial advisor to the range of responsible and green investment strategies available to Canadians.
- CoPower’s explainer details the different types of climate risk that your portfolio may be exposed to.
Where can I find products?
- The RIA provides a product marketplace with listings of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), GICs and more that you may want to consider for your portfolio. You can filter products by risk level, sector and strategy.
- Open Impact is a database specifically for Canadian impact investment opportunities and the Social Venture Exchange (SVX) is a platform where you can make impact investments in funds and ventures.
- The Jantzi Social Index is a socially-screened, market capitalization-weighted common stock index comprised of Canadian companies.
- Tim Nash’s blog provides model portfolios listing specific product options.
- CoPower investor Jory Cohen opens up his personal portfolio and provides examples of the products he has chosen and the rationale behind his strategy. When reviewing Tim’s model portfolios and Jory’s blog, it is important to remember that your investment decisions should be based on your personal financial goals and situation.
How do I assess the climate risk or positive impact of products?
- Fossil Free Funds is a search platform that looks at the climate impact of popular mutual funds and shows you if your money is being invested in fossil fuel companies or companies with high carbon footprints.
- The Carbon Disclosure Project provides self-reported data on the environmental performance of businesses around the world, many of which may be in your portfolio.
- Yahoo Finance (in partnership with Sustainalytics) offers a “sustainability” tab for each product. Check out the example for Exxon Mobile here.
- CoPower’s report on the carbon impact of the average Canadian investment portfolio explains the impact of the S&P/TSX and the MSCI World Index.
Who can I go to for help and advice?
- The RIA provides a listing of institutions, advisors and other financial professionals who specialize in and offer responsible investments.
- As mentioned above, Good Investing (Tim Nash) offers fee-only financial planning services for investors looking to make values-aligned investments.
Thanks again to our community partners, The Climate Reality Project, CBSR, Project Neutral, CSI, and Mars Discovery District!
