Why It’s So Hard to Invest With a Social Conscience<br />According to one industry study of 421 plans, just 14 percent offered at least one sustainable fund<br />and only about 1 percent of assets ended up in the investments.<br />COST AND DIVERSIFICATION If you’re a committed index fund investor, seeking to own every stock or bond (or every sustainable<br />one) in a particular market segment (say, small European companies), it may not be easy to do so cheaply if you can at all.<br />One fund company called Inspire, according to one of its prospectuses, avoids companies<br />that have “any degree of participation in activities that do not align with biblical values.” It includes among that list “the LGBT lifestyle,” without further elaboration.<br />“Currently, most accessible S. R.I.<br />approaches make investors choose between a well diversified, low-cost portfolio<br />and an inadequately diversified and/or higher-cost portfolio comprised of S. R.I.<br />funds,” wrote Alex Benke, who is now company’s vice president of financial advice and planning.
