US SIF Foundation Releases Guide for Retail Investors to Address Climate Change

WASHINGTON, DC // July 22, 2013: Today the US SIF Foundation released Investing to Curb Climate Change: A Guide for the Individual Investor. This guide seeks to meet the increasing interest of a wide range of investors in using their investment dollars to address the risks of climate change and to help generate solutions.

The guide highlights strategies that retail investors can use not only to address climate change within their own holdings of stocks, mutual funds, fixed income and cash instruments, but also to encourage institutions in their communities to adopt more climate-sensitive investment policies. The guide also suggests several public policy initiatives investors can support to facilitate investments in clean energy and energy efficiency. A similar guide for institutional investors will be published on July 29 and will delve more into private equity and alternative investments.

US SIF Foundation CEO Lisa Woll said, “While the sustainable investment field has a long history of addressing climate change, many investors have not considered how their investment portfolios can be part of their efforts to confront climate change. This short guide provides retail investors with resources and ideas they can employ to decrease the carbon intensity of their own portfolios and to encourage more investment towards a low-carbon economy.

“The guide is also timely because recent campaigns calling for divestment from fossil fuels have drawn the attention of a range of retail and institutional investors who may be thinking for the first time about how to invest to curb climate change. The guide will show them the breadth of strategies that can advance their climate change efforts. For those investors who have chosen to divest from fossil fuels, the US SIF Foundation has also created a new web page, Fossil Fuels, Divestment and Reinvestment, which helps investors consider reinvestment options across a range of asset classes to help promote renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development.”

Investing to Curb Climate Change: A Guide for the Individual Investor is the inaugural publication of the “How do I SRI” series of practical guidebooks. Each guide will focus on a social or environmental problem and the strategies through which investors can address it. The series is made possible through funding from the Wallace Global Fund.

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The US SIF Foundation is a 501c3 organization that undertakes educational, research and programmatic activities to advance the mission of US SIF.

US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment is the US membership association for professionals, firms, institutions and organizations engaged in sustainable and responsible investing. US SIF and its members advance investment practices that consider environmental, social and corporate governance criteria to generate long-term competitive financial returns and positive societal impact. US SIF’s members include investment management and advisory firms, mutual fund companies, research firms, financial planners and advisors, broker-dealers, banks, credit unions, community development organizations, non-profit associations, and pension funds, foundations and other asset owners

Contact: Megan Smith, msmith@ussif.org, 202-747-7820

This release was originally published by the US SIF Foundation which is solely responsible for its content.