If you take care to eat vegan and try not to use any animal products such as fur, leather, silk, honey and wool, why should this not extend to other areas of your life like finance and investment as well? Carrying forward the idea of living a vegan lifestyle is the concept of vegan investing. This concept centers itself on investments into companies that follow ethical principles in the way they treat animals and the environment.
Vegan companies
Vegan companies are those that have a conscience, who don’t exploit animals for their own profit and gain. Not only do they not test on animals, they don’t use animal products either as ingredients of their products or for manufacturing processes. These are ethical companies that pay heed to social justice and the environmental responsibility of manufacturers.
The aim of vegan investing
The impact of investing in vegan companies is twofold. By investing in these, you not only give financial impetus and encouragement to companies that follow environmentally and socially responsible practices, you also help divert capital from companies that follow destructive practices.
Vegan investing can help shape a better future in a small but significant way by not investing in companies that exploit animals. It furthers the concept of Socially Responsible Investing that came about as a result of people’s desire to make investments based on their societal concerns and values.
Finding vegan investment opportunities
Typically you would need to do a lot of research to find genuinely vegan and non exploitive companies that look after animal welfare. Reading up about the company, their prospectus and so on can be quite challenging.
There is an element of risk in vegan investing, since vegan enterprises tend to be smaller, closely held outfits that require venture capital investments as against buying stocks listed on the market. Such investments can be higher risk, so if you need advice about how to invest vegan, you could look for fund managers that can offer competitive returns even on vegan investments.
Wide Circle Fund is a service that offers ethical investment fund management. They develop equity investment funds that support ethical values of people and help them invest in companies that support veganism.
Rocky Mountain Humane Investing also supports cruelty free investments that help further the compassionate values of investors.
The Social Investment Forum is another conduit for vegan people to invest in accordance with their moral stance.