If you’re a first-time ethical investor, looking at all the different shares and ETFs available on the ASX, you might be a little overwhelmed. Well don’t worry, you’re not alone! 

Hello! I’m Owen, SIX’s Communications Manager. You may have seen me on one of our social media posts or ads, or I might pop up in your email inbox from time to time. I’m still pretty new to ethical investing, as I’m sure many of you are.

My background is in youth climate activism, building communities of young people and empowering them to push for change in federal politics, which I did for many years in the School Strike 4 Climate movement and with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. 

One thing I’ve realised since joining SIX, is that so many young people want to invest their money, but feel as though they can’t do it in line with their values. That is exactly how I felt.

But, since I started my ethical investing journey, I’ve had my eyes opened to the many different ways I can make a positive impact with my money, and I’m learning more everyday.

Like many other young people, I don’t have a lot of money to invest. 

I only work part-time, and I’m a full-time university student. I donate some of my income to NGOs and mutual aid causes, and I also choose to spend a lot of my income through socialising and travel (my view is that you’re only young once, so you may as well enjoy it!).

So for me, investing is not about trying to be worth a million dollars tomorrow. It is about starting with small investments and regularly contributing to them, so that I can gradually build a portfolio over-time. This provides the peace-of-mind that allows me to enjoy life as a young person, while not having to panic too much over my future finances.

Without having a lot of money to invest, it can be hard to have a diverse portfolio when getting started. So, I decided that my initial investments will be in ETFs, allowing my portfolio to be invested in a lot of different companies (if you’re thinking WTF is an ETF, click here).

I also wanted my initial investments to be focussed on backing climate solutions, as well screening out other negative social harms, such as human rights violations and weapons developments. 

These are the ETFs that I have gotten started with:

1. BetaShares Global Sustainability Leaders ETF (ETHI): ETHI is an ETF that invests in international stocks outside Australia that have passed strict ethical screens and have lower carbon emissions relative to their industry competitors. It removes companies involved in harmful activities like fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, weapons. It also avoids activities many ESG funds don’t, such as major fossil fuel finance, payday lending and animal cruelty.
   
   How did I find it: I used SIX’s Ethical Filters in the Find Stocks tab, and selected what social harms I wanted screened out of my investments. ETHI came up as one of the options, and after reading its Ethical Profile created by our ESG team, I concluded that it matched my values.

2. VanEck MSCI International Sustainable Equity ETF (ESGI): ESGI is an ETF that invests in around 150 international companies, excluding Australia, and aims to invest in sustainable companies. It has strong negative screens for fossil fuels, gambling, tobacco, factory farming, soft drinks, and weapons. 
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   How did I find it: ESGI is one of the ETFs in SIX’s ETF Starter Bundles. These bundles consist of three ETFs selected by our ESG team, to help first-time investors get started. One great thing about the bundles is that if you’re not in a position to invest in all three, you don’t have to. You start by just investing in one of the ETFs, and then invest in the others later, which is what I did!

When starting out, it also helped having access to a range of resources SIX has created to assist first-time investors. You can find them in the Learn section of our blog page, or in our FAQs.

At this stage of my ethical investing journey, I haven’t been in the position to join a shareholder activism campaign. However, it is the next step that I’m working towards, with a goal to join my first activist campaign as a shareholder by the start of next year.

If I had to pick one of SIX’s current campaigns I’d be the most interested to join, it would be our campaign with GetUp calling on Coles (ASX: COL) to end its partnership with Palantir. 

If shareholder activism sounds like it might be a good starting place for your ethical investing journey, you can learn more about how they work at SIX here.