Morten Strange - The Ethical Investor’s Handbook: How to grow your money without wrecking the Earth

2018 Morten Strange and Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd

Published in 2018 by Marshall Cavendish Business
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

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All examples and analysis in the book are provided for illustration purposes only and should not be considered as specific investment advice. Investment in securities involves the risk of loss. Past performance of investment products is not necessarily a guide to future performance. Any reliance placed on the information herein is strictly at the readers own risk. The author will not be held liable for any losses arising out of the use of the information.

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Name(s): Strange, Morten.
Title: The Ethical Investors Handbook: How to grow your money without wrecking the earth / Morten Strange.
Description: First edition. | Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Business, [2018]
Identifier(s): OCN 1050347308 | eISBN 978-981-4841-07-8
Subject(s): LCSH: Finance, Personal. | Finance, PersonalMoral and ethical aspects. | Investments. | InvestmentsMoral and ethical aspects. | Social responsibility of business.
Classification: DDC 332.024dc23

Printed in Singapore

I was born with a deep fascination and love for nature and wildlife, and have been involved in nature conservation all my life. During my life, I have seen the conservation movement grow tremendously in size and scope and influence; awareness amongst the public and increasingly decision makers in governments and the private sector is greater than ever; the science about the problems, the consequences and the solution is also clearer than ever.

And yet, in spite of our many new initiatives and achievements, we are in the midst of a shocking decline in biodiversity. Loss of tropical rainforest is accelerating, not slowing down. The climate is destabilising. In fact, degradation of our natural world has begun to affect the very global ecological balance that we all depend on, with dangerous consequences for all life on Earth, including our own. It is time that we step back and consider why this is so. It is necessary that we think outside of the box and consider what is driving this deterioration.

At the 2018 WWF Global Conference in Colombia we focused on how we galvanise the world to commit to a new ambitious Global Deal for Nature, the way it was committed to in Paris for climate. For this to happen we discussed the need to develop a new compelling narrative about the value of nature to us, our well-being, health, happiness and prosperity. A narrative that, alongside the crucially important ethical argument of respect and coexistence with nature, also highlights the benefits that nature provides to us, and the dangerous consequences if natural systems collapse. We need to advocate for more ambitious targets, more serious commitment to implementation and greater integration between nature, climate and sustainable development. We left that Conference inspired and energised but also still deeply concerned about the crisis the planet and our society face.

I know that Morten Strange shares this sense of concern and urgency. We stamped into each other a long time ago when we both attended the 1994 inaugural BirdLife International conference in Rosenheim, Germany. I worked at the time in a national organisation in Italy, LIPU, and Morten represented the counterpart in Denmark, DOF. We undoubtedly share the same genuine passion for our amazing, magnificent, inspiring natural world.

Morten left the NGO world a couple of years later in order to try to make an impact in the private sector, working on nature awareness-building, most recently as a financial analyst with a keen interest in economics, personal finance and ethical capital allocation. And I ended up leading WWF International, a globally distributed organisation with an holistic approach to solving todays ecological crisis and building a future where people and nature live in harmony. WWF believes in an approach based on both delivering concrete conservation results on the field through protecting species and natural places, but also influencing the key drivers of nature loss from food production to financial flows, markets and governance.

To find solutions to our broken relationship with the natural world, we need everyone involved; in this book Morten has taken it upon himself to scrutinise these issues mainly from a financial and monetary point of view. While I might not agree with every statement Morten makes in this book, his work is a thought-provoking guide to being an ethical investor with much to be learned from in order to achieve the much-needed shift to ensure a future for our natural world and our own civilisation.

Dr Marco Lambertini
Director General
WWF International

I cannot invest the way I want the world to be. I have to invest the way the world is.

JIM ROGERS

The famous Singapore-based American businessman wrote this in an invitation to the World Wealth Creation Conference in Singapore in November 2017. For what it is worth, I concur. All investors involved with the allocation of capital grapple with these issues both institutional professionals as well as small retail investors trying to get a return on their modest savings. We want the world to be a certain way, to be nice; but we also want the best possible return on our investments. On one hand we want to be well-off; but on the other we dont want to do harm to others or to nature; we dont really want to wreck the earth.

Is it possible to invest in an ethical manner and still generate a good return on your capital? Yes, I think it is. In fact I have proven it myself. As I will explain later, in ethics there is no one-size-fitsall. We each have slightly different standards and priorities. But having said that, I also believe that there are some universal values that bind us together; at the bottom of our hearts most people know what it means to be a decent human being.