I was talking to my bank who advised me that I might consider either ethical or green investments and wondered if you had any ideas about which investments were appropriate?
An Ethical/green investment is either something you are really focused on or not. Many customers have interestingly been put off ethical and green investment because of the underperformance over time. Investors should also seek careful advice.
I considered a conversation with a fellow traveller in Arizona today. I’m here with my family and couldn’t help but notice that everything is miles (no miles!) from anywhere. A trip from the Grand Canyon to Flagstaff meant I didn’t see a petrol station in 2 hours! I noticed how vast the country was and asked about the impact of four litre cars having to travel an hour just to get groceries.
I also asked how far people have to travel to go to school. I parked up in an RV (motor home) park in Las Vegas and noticed that everyone had their generators on to feed air conditioning and many left their doors open.
I noticed the water levels at Hoover Dam were at levels of pre 1965 and have fallen from near 1215 feet to today’s levels of 1110 feet. As you gaze around the rim of Lake Mead you can’t help but notice the difference in rock colour where the 105 foot gap is apparent.
I pulled up at a marina that had been reasonably recently built at Overton in Nevada. It was deserted and a sign said it had been closed, as water levels are now so low that boats can’t launch. On the next site I noticed that many of the water fittings to the RV’s (motor homes) were poorly fitting and water happily poured away. Most of my conversations with people were interesting in that they all felt a caring for the planet yet the evidence of clear action wasn’t there. So why?
Some were concerned that it was being used as an excuse to hit us with extra taxes via petrol. When I look at it, I might be inclined to have sympathy for that. I suppose when I look at petrol prices it becomes a little clearer.
If the price of petrol was 90p (nice dream), 47.1p would disappear in duty, and 13.4p would go to VAT. Value added? Where’s the value? So from a product cost of 23.2p and a retailer delivery cost of 6.3p I end up with 29.5p. That means the added tax costs are a massive increase of 205%. Now if we say that the increases are to help the environment, can I please ask someone to tell me how this has helped, and what has been done with the money? Has the increase stopped people using their car more? Is there any evidence of it? What are they doing to assist in protecting the environment?2
I am in Sedona, Arizona today and I along with all the other large vehicles here am paying short of three dollars per gallon for fuel. That’s £1.42 per gallon or 37.51p per litre!
American planes take off over 8.5 million times per year and in fact one third of the world’s airports are in the USA. The biggest fuel burner is the take off and over half of those are in the USA.
Lines of traffic await me on my way up the west coast of America. In the time I have left, I, like others, have time to consider whether or not those that can have their hand in our pocket once again.
For me, the real difference will occur when governments truly take it seriously and responsibly and use encouragement rather than penalties to motivate people to help the environment. Perhaps they can have a smoke over that thought in parliament, as it isn’t banned there.
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