The following is a condensed, less academic excerpt of a paper I recently wrote for my final graduate course. It also represents the completion of Task #3 on my 9-Week Productivity Challenge and the beginning of a series of posts here on Earth and Money related the social and environmental impacts of our investments. The series began unofficially two weeks ago with a look at an emerging type of investment vehicle, community bonds.
Basic economics would dictate that public demand drives the success and failure of various enterprises. A company can only sell a product if someone desires it (though through good marketing, they can manufacture that desire as well). However, while average Canadians make greater strides towards environmental consciousness, they may be undoing their own efforts by bankrolling the very companies they are boycotting or attempting to avoid with their investments. In a nutshell, Canadians (and quite frankly, citizens worldwide) are funding their own demise by supporting companies which create unhealthy environments. This, in and of itself, is a major environmental health problem that has been grossly overlooked in the current environmental movement. When a consumer goes out of their way to purchase organic foods, what purpose does that serve if they have their money invested in companies that seek to produce unsustainable, pesticide-laced foods which only drive up the price of the very organic foods that they want to purchase?
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In one of my favorite TV shows, How I Met Your Mother, Future Ted tells his future kids a piece of advice that his mother gave him as a child – “Nothing good happens after 2 AM”. Oh how true this is! When it comes to making financial decisions, it is imperative that you have a clear and focused mind. Given how hard we work for our money, a poorly made financial decision can come back to haunt us many times over. My own experience with this lesson happened on the weekend.