A WORD TO TH MONEY-WISE

Verify that a bank is insured by the Federal Deposit InsuranceCorporation (FDIC) or the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), where accounts are insured up to $250,000 per depositor.
Responsible investors can also influence banking practices in their workplaces, religious institutions or professional associations by educating account managers about the issues. Green America has a free booklet for 401k benefits managers at org/finance.
There are as many names for socially responsible investing(SRI) as there are approaches to it including community, ethical, green, impact, mission-related, responsible, sustainable and values-based investing. What an institution or a fund does and how they do it is more important than how it’s labeled.
The mainstreaming of SRI, while positive overall as impact investing is getting the attention of larger firms, has led to some “greenwashing”, where portfolios are being touted as socially responsible without much depth to their criteria, cautions investment advisor Gary Matthews, of SRI Investing LLC, in New York City. Fund sustainability rankings like the Morningstar Sustainability Rating can help take out the guesswork, although it pays to ask hard questions and look at a fund’s individual holdings.
Returns, whether social, environmental or financial, aren’t everything. “When it comes to investing, it’s important to get clear about specific goals, whether it’s planning for a home purchase or paying off student loans, understand the potential risks and returns, and set up an appropriate time horizon,” says Amberjae Freeman, of the portfolio management team for Swell Investing LLC, a Santa Monica-based impact investment firm.