Quick get me a Halo

Posted on Tue 12 April 2005 by alex in general

Well I'm into my third month at New Company so its time to get the pension stuff sorted out. As you may or may not know you don't have to go with the default fund, usually a "With Profits" smoothed fund that usually gives a moderate growth. Because I'm right at the beginning of my thirty or so years I can afford to be a little more risky with my fund choices given I have a longer period to claw money back. At the same time pension funds are a major part of the financial sector and therefor have an impact on society due to the things they invest in. As a result I've decided to spread my risk over a couple of "ethical" funds (Norwich Union and Sustainable Futures). Of course this isn't really an altruistic act on my part, it is basically a gamble, which is all investing is. But the premise of the gamble is that at some point over my lifetime there will be a crunch either due to major environmental issues, fossil fuels, social change or government intervention. If that happens I'm hoping that the companies that think about the long term will be less affected than the rest. Of course it also feels good in the karma stakes, as long as I don't have to look at any really bad numbers in the next 30 years ;-)