Jiva Healing

For many years I have worked in the area of socially responsible or ethical investment. Once the domain of hard line environmentalists, this type of investment focused on avoiding companies that were doing bad things – destroying the environment, mistreating employees or communities, or adopting unethical and corrupt business practices. But increasingly, as enviromental and social issues have moved into the mainstream business consciousness it has become apparent that there are now a number of positive investment opportunities, into companies doing good things, that are allowing a new breed of responsible investors to allocate their captial in ways that both make money and do not cause harm at the same time.

But how does one distiguish between the investment funds that offer genuinely sustainable returns and ones that purport to be green, but really don’t do what they say on the tin? Well these are the investment funds that I would recommend for your pensions and ISAs

Impax Environmental Markets – this is a great fund with a small/medium company bias – investing in companies at the forefront of developing environmental technologies to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental problems. It invests in companies in the alternative energy, energy efficiency, water treatment and pollution control and waste management sectors and has a great track record of delivering good financial returns.

Norwich Union Sustainable Future Funds – I must admit I used to work here so I might be a little compromised, but I know their investment process well and they do invest in companies that are doing things in the environmental sector as well as companies with good social practices and products (e.g. education, healthcare, urban regeneration) – they also engage with companies to encourage them to improve their social and environmental practices.

And finally, Friends Provident’s Stewardship fund – this has been around for years, has had great financial performance and a large team of committed analysts and fund managers that look at social and enviromental issues across all the companies that go into their funds.

The wanton destruction of our natural environment from our increasing, unequitable and unsustainable consumption habits is causing havoc and misery… It is important to think about your impacts and be aware of what you can do to help reduce the environmental burden in your own way every day…  Here are some scary statistics to get you thinking…

1 billion people in the world do not have access to clean water

1.5 billion people live on less than $1 per day

more than 1/2 of the world’s forests have been lost, 1/3 of the world’s wetlands and 1/3 of our grasslands (due to human activity)

farmed animals account for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions – this is more than global transport systems including air travel

20% of the world’s population of people living in developed countries like Europe and the US consume 80% of the world’s resources. If countries like China and India were to meet the consumption habits we have in the west, we would need 5 planets to meet the resource demand!

The cost to UK business of doing something to mitigate and adapt to climate change is 1% of GDP. The cost of doing nothing is 20% of GDP (Stern Review)

For more of these frightening facts you can visit www.peterrussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

I am not going to go through the complexities of why climate change is happening and what its effects are, and why you should care… if you don’t already know you should watch Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Needless to say, air travel creates a lot of carbon dioxide emissions and is one of the main contributors to global warming, so what is the answer to reducing the impact of flying?

The first consideration must always be to reduce your air travel where possible by using alternative modes of transport – take the train, boat or drive, and try to holiday nearer to home. This year Jiva Healing offered free massages to people who traveled to our retreat in France by train – but obviously this does not work so well for our retreats in Goa!

We are aware that our most significant environmental impact comes from people traveling to our retreats by air, so we have been investigating how we might go about offsetting those emissions. Last year we supported a local charity in Spain to compensate for our clients’flights to our retreat in Menorca. The charity, CeroCO2 sponsors reforestation programs in Costa Rica, calculating your emissions against the likely CO2 savings from the projects they sponsor, and charging you accordingly.

This year we are choosing to offset emissions by buying and protecting virgin rainforest through www.coolearth.org. This is because the rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to the Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York.

Stopping the loggers is one of the fastest and cheapest solutions to climate change and Cool Earth allow you to buy a section of rainforest which is stewarded by local people to ensure it is not destroyed. You can even view your bit of rainforest on google earth.

That doesn’t mean we should stop worrying about flying, but be aware that it is vastly more beneficial from a carbon saving point of view for us to concentrate some of our offsetting efforts on preserving the existing rainforest rather than just planting new trees. Think about buying some rainforest next time you travel…