Ethical investment: Where next?

George Penaluna reflects on the history and future of ethical investment

by George Penaluna 19th October 2012

The idea of ethical investment can be taken right back to the nineteenth century, when Quakers refused to invest in the arms industry. More recently, the early 1980s are seen as the start of modern ethical investment in the UK. For ethical fund managers life was fairly easy then. They simply avoided the five so-called sin stocks: armaments, alcohol, gambling, tobacco and pornography.