Options for Socially Responsible Investing

Many people who are considering investing have found themselves in a moral conundrum. They want to make solid investments and make some decent money, however a lot of major corporations in North America practice less than socially responsible development. They are more focused on profits than ensuring the long term viability of this planet, which makes it very hard to feel good about investing in them. Fortunately, there are options for investing in which you can invest in companies who are socially responsible.

Specific mutual funds are an excellent way to invest money and be sure to have that money in socially responsible companies. For example, Vanguard offers a very good socially responsible index fund called the Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund (VFTSX). The fund it self has very low expense ratio, and prescreens companies that are good environmental stewards, have solid labor practices, and have no history of human rights abuse to be included in the fund.

There are other companies which promote shareholder activism which offers mutual funds with similar goals. These companies include Calvert & Domini, Parnassus ,and Pax World Funds. You will definitely want to go ahead and compare all of the options available to you, based on their measurements of social responsibility and their historic rates of return. It's only logical to diversify your money between differing mutual funds, so you might want to get a couple of the funds for diversification purposes.

Domini is probably the largest mutual fund company in this area. They have a European fund, an index fund and a bond fund. They don't have as many options as a lot of the major companies such as T-Rowe Price and Vanguard, but it should be more than enough for you to have a successful retirement plan.