History of ethical investment
Ethical investment goes back to the 19th century when Quakers in Britain and Ireland refused to invest in the arms industry.
More recently, US citizens opposed to the military action in Vietnam invested in the world’s first modern ethical fund, the Pax Fund.
The UK’s first ethical fund was launched in 1984 by Friends Provident. In the City it was dubbed ‘the Brazil fund’, as they thought the idea was nuts. But since then the ethical investment landscape has changed considerably. There is now around £9 billion invested in almost 100 ethical funds in the UK – a decade ago there were just a couple of dozen.
