Claude Walker

It's also quite a difficult one.

There's a few elements to unpack in it.

I think overarchingly there's one important point to make in response to that question, which is you talk about, I guess, like, you know, the idea of greenwashing and the intentions and the reasons that certain people are acting in certain ways.

And for some people, understandably, it could make a difference to

whether somebody is cynically trying to give an ethical investing product simply because they want to make money by attracting people and, and other people that like sort of truly doing it, or at least the DNA of that company comes from, um, you know, wanting to do the right thing.

And, um,

it's also possible that the cynical people that are following, they still achieve good.

Do you know?

It's because the real people that are driving that are the people out there who might be interested in ethical investing, which creates the demand, which then creates this cynical supply response of greenwashing.

But as long as you, as long as you're willing, if you think someone might be greenwashing, there's always a risk.

They're not actually doing a good job, but you know, if they are,

then they're still probably achieving a good thing anyway.

So that's the thing I'll say up front when I talk about some of the players here is that probably it's all good even if one is green rotting.

But then to answer the question more directly, I think that you have to follow the history of the people.

And, you know, we could, we can talk about, for example, perhaps the reason I invest with Australian Ethical and I just, this is not meant to sound like an ad for them.

I'm going to take my super away from them and put it in SMSF.

But like the reason I did historically is because, well, first of all, they've been doing it for ages.

Like they were around years before anyone else.

They were started by like, as I understand it, you know,

competing groups of like well-meaning ethical investor minded people i have had in my um i have had in my mom's house i think like you know all of these historical documents and annual reports and stuff that pertain to australian ethical investments as it is today because i'm friends with um someone who was a lifelong ethical investor who was involved with them at the very start in fact australian ethical you know bought out that that company ultimately um