The Clean Yield Group - Principles and Profits Working Together

What is Socially Responsible Investing?

Social investors recognize that every financial transaction has social implications as well as monetary ones. While traditional investing is aimed exclusively at maximizing financial value, social investing takes account of both financial and social bottom lines. Socially responsible investing can be a catalyst for positive social change or merely a way to help the investor sleep better at night.

In its ideal, SRI is investing that does not exploit human, environmental, or capital resources, but rather directs financial resources for positive social benefit.

In recent years, the SRI field has been grouped into four broad activities:

  1. Screening: avoidance and positive
  2. Community and social-venture investing
  3. Shareowner proxy activism / corporate engagement
  4. Public-policy advocacy

At Clean Yield, we are committed both to maximizing financial return and promoting a better society, or, at minimum, avoiding social and environmental harm. We are engaged in all four activities.