Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Environmentality 8 October 2014, Simon O'Connor, CEO, Responsible Investments Association Australasia

Question: Why don’t you invest in a responsible and ethical superannuation fund?

Answer: Well, I’ve worked all my life to get some money into my super and I don’t want to be left behind, I don’t want to lose out on my grand plans for retirement… I want the larger and more reliable returns from sticking with the proven performers.
Hmmm… you may want to read on!! “For 13 years the Responsible Investments Association Australasia has been producing a report that assesses the industry including its size, growth and performance of both responsible/ethical funds and the mainstream funds. What has been shown over the last 13 years is that responsible and ethical funds have been outperforming the market (ASX300 index & the average conventional funds) in nearly all time horizons and nearly all investment classes.” Simon O’Connor, CEO of Responsible Investments Association Australasia on the show this week.

This week is a must listen (listen here) and although I think we might be preaching to the converted here, I recommend heading to the Responsible Investments Association Australasia (RIAA) website to get your head around what it means to invest responsibly and ethically. It is a great resource for those looking to find out some more info on this topic, and there is probably more to it than what you first think.
If anything, when looking into moving your investments, whether that be you bank savings, your super, your investment portfolio, make sure you look for the Certified Responsible Investment logo. The Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) is the peak body for professionals working in responsible investment so you can be sure that if it’s certified by RIAA it’s has been thoroughly checked out and ticks all the right box’s, and that applies to financial advisers too.

Links from this week’s show:
On the show this week we discussed a recent piece written by our guest Simon which appeared in The Guardian, Beyond Politics: how finance can influence climate change in Australia.

China coal consumption down 23% as more funds dump fossil fuels. Some key points from this article include a long list of public and private institutions, organisations and groups moving away from fossil fuel investments, a common myth used by fossil fuel linked industries around losses to retirement savings and also the issue of moving out of fossil fuel in favour of nuclear…is this still responsible and ethical? A question I would have liked to ask Simon. What do you think?
RenewEconomy

Vested interests cutting down clean energy, resisting change. As the title suggests this piece shines a light on the great progress that the clean energy sector has been making in recent years and the current moves to halt progress, including the overtly biased Warburton review of the RET. If the RET is weakened, it will effectively transfer $10 billion from renewable energy generators back to fossil fuel generators.

Hopefully you are still reading and not bored completely by this stuff but I for one find the topic of responsible/ethical/renewable investment not only interesting but I think it is the crucial link we need to promote in order to achieve the rapid positive environmental change required to keep climate change in check.
On next week’s show we have our resident gardening expert Jodi Jackson in the studio. Tune in live to 98.9 North West FM or download the Tunein or North West FM app and search for us on there!

Unfortunately, the music tracks were omitted this week due to time constraints, however Simon did provide some suggestions before the show which we will play over the coming weeks! Stay tuned.


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