At Marin Wealth Advisors, we are a Registered Investment Advisor often able to help you align your investment portfolio to your values. To help meet your desire to invest responsibly whenever possible, we look for companies and funds whose practices and policies attempt to balance Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) responsibilities with their responsibility to provide consistent returns to their investors.
ESG – The Future of Growth?
Sound Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies can strengthen a company’s business model and offer opportunities that can increase profitability and growth.
The longevity of any company is tied to its commitment to environmental friendliness which often leads to reduced costs and increased efficiencies. Social considerations like fair treatment of employees and strict governance standards, such as a fairly represented Board of Directors or clearly delineated roles of shareholders and stakeholders.
Governance is commonly the most overlooked of the three ESG factors. Yet, a strong corporate governance system of principles, policies and procedures is necessary in order to resolve potential conflicts and risks inherent in a corporation. A robust corporate governance system is, therefore, essential to reducing operational risk and increase sustainability within organizations. In addition, we’ve found that a strong score in Governance positively effects Environmental and Social scores.
Sustainable Investing-Responsible Investing-Impact Investing
Sustainable Investing, Responsible Investing and Impact Investing (SRI) are investment disciplines that consider environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria to generate long-term competitive financial returns and positive societal impact. These terms, sustainable, responsible and impact investing are somewhat interchangeable, but there are some generally recognized nuances. Sustainable investing and responsible investing generally refer to investing scoring all three ESG components. Impact investing refers to investments made in companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return.
Performance
Regarding investment performance, companies with strong ESG scores are much more likely to avoid legal and liability problems, as well as management problems, reducing the risk in owning these stocks. As well, there are important studies illustrating that overall market performance of companies with strong Environment, Social and Governance policies generally outperform their less responsible peers.
Our Responsibilities as a Fiduciary
We at Marin Wealth Advisors believe in placing our client’s best interests first. Therefore, we commit to the following five fiduciary principles:
- We will always put our client’s best interests first.
- We will act with prudence; with the skill, care, diligence, and good judgment of a professional.
- We will not mislead you. We provide conspicuous, full and fair disclosure of all important facts.
- We will avoid conflicts of interest.
- We will fully disclose and fairly manage, in your favor, any unavoidable conflicts.