Well, this wasn’t something my arithmetic teachers would have seen coming. Marian spending a full-on day at an ethical finance conference making head AND tail of what ‘money’ people do. But of course, what I understood at this top-level conference in Edinburgh was not the numbers but the morality that was discussed.
I’ve spent a lifetime believing that anyone in a sharp suit selling investment products must be in league with dark forces. I got it wrong. Of course there are individuals and companies willing to sell a pig in a poke to an old age pensioner or deal in the kind of debt juggling that led to the 2008 financial apocalypse. We are still permanently perched on the brink of the financial abyss.
But the number of earnest and honest who attended this ethical finance conference was high enough to convince even the most sceptical that there is a sea change in the finance industry.
Justice and Peace Scotland believes in the stewardship of the planet, and that includes dealing with climate change, the arms trade, and human rights. There was a lot of talk about SDGs – the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, which are Justice and Peace territory. Throwing those initials around is all well and good, but I wondered how many of the delegates were really aware of those goals in relation to financial investment. I decided to put people to the test if I was given the opportunity.
I almost regretted that decision during the coffee/networking break when a scientist-come-AI specialist-come-investment expert responded with an avalanche of convincing evidence that his job entailed grilling every company seeking investment on every SDG. Any company failing stringent tests would not be included in investment portfolios. No sneaky box-ticking could get them through.
During our lunch/networking break, I spoke with a young man about his organisation’s methods. He’d set up his own company. He was smooth, smart and charming - but my goodness, forget stereotyping. He knew his SDGs inside out. I threw numbers at him (SDGs 4 and 5) and he came back at me - quality education and gender equality - before my question was formulated.
There were panellists who understood that those living in poverty in developing countries need access to affordable financial products that will pay for a wedding or a funeral; experts who explained the complications of moving from a fossil fuel economy to sustainable energy.
It’s all complicated - but the message was that it’s do-able, and that ‘honesty’, ‘transparency’, ‘sustainability’ are not just blah-blah words but ones that a large enough swathe of this industry abides by.
This was an interfaith conference, initiated by the Muslim and Church of Scotland communities and supported by the Jewish and Christian faiths. It was multi-national. It suggested strongly that finance can be truly ethical. But as investors (and that includes us all, not just those with millions), we have to ask for the ethical option, or we are still in danger of falling off the cliff.