The following mainstream consumer investment products are a selection of investment vehicles that can be tied with ethical investment funds:

Stakeholder & Personal Pension Plans
Additional Voluntary Contribution Plans
Company pension schemes
Pension transfers
Life assurance
Regular savings
Lump sum investments
Personal Equity Plans & ISAs
Critical Illness Protection
Mortgage related plans
General Insurance

If you are interested in taking out a financial product which is tied with an ethical investment fund, please contact an independent financial advisor who will be best placed to advise you on the best available products on the market.

Microfinance institutions (also known as MFIs) are organisations that provide both capital and development support and advice to small, vulnerable communities in developing countries to enable them to develop commercial enterprise and trade activities within their own community.

Activities could consist of donations for buying seeds or agricultural tools, buying materials to make clothes etc and offer the essentials to allow a community to become more self-sufficient.

Whilst donating to charity can have the same effect, poorer communities prefer to borrow what they need on commercial terms so that they can take responsibility for their own communities development. It can also be argued that charitable donations do not always provide the right incentive to encourage people to take responsibility for their community and do what they can to lift themselves out of poverty.

More recently investment institutions have taken greater notice of microfinance institutions and have begun to provide significant levels of investment. This may well be as a result of the high rates of return that some microfinance institutions have been able to achieve but also a low rates of default. . However as far as consumer investment is concerned, opportunities are limited as the minimum lending requirements are usually set quite high (usually in the hundreds of thousands of pounds).

Despite a clear need for sustainable, affordable housing the opportunities for ordinary investors to support this sector through retail investment funds are extremely limited.

Social housing investment funds consist of equity finance (known as mezzanine debt) to enable developers to acquire bank funding for sustainable housing projects. Equity partnerships for less affluent home buyers, offering them the prospect of acquiring full ownership over time.

Private finance for “equity release” or “second charge” loans in order to enable vulnerable homeowners to upgrade their property (for example with central heating, a new roof, better insulation) or to install solar heating

Alternative Energy investments is quickly becoming one of the fasted growing areas of environmental and ethical investing. Alternative Energy schemes range from government backed initiatives, large scale engineering projects initiated by the science community or industrial energy providers as well as local community based renewal energy schemes. Community based renewable energy projects make up a large part of the current schemes available. These often consist of wind farm projects and hydro-electric schemes, often funded by local community based schemes working in partnership with industrial and engineering companies.

Agricultural land has recently become one of the most sought after areas of investment.  UK agricultural investments can often provide significant tax breaks whilst foreign agricultural investments offer the benefits of improved climate, growing conditions (and therefore yield and quality) and often lower costs.

UK Farming

The value of UK agricultural land has grown steadily over recent years and usually forms the biggest part of any return from any farming investment. Commodity revenues by comparison are varied in performance and not always predictable.

Farm investments often take the form of an initial purchase and leaseback or farm management contract. Farms can be purchased outright and then leased back to the farmer under a tenancy agreement. Alternatively a suitable ethically focused tenant farmer can be put in place.

If only a smaller amount is available it is possible to purchase smaller units of land that can be farmed under contract in line with your ethical standards. In many circumstances recruiting the farmer of an adjoining piece of land often helps to manage costs more effectively. There is also a  possibility that in the future UK farming investments may be exempt from inheritance tax rules.

Global Farming

A better climate lower land and labour costs  have helped drive the development of a growing number of investment opportunities in farms overseas, particularly in developing countries and the third world. Not only do these opportunities provide an enhanced level of return but also provide investors with the opportunity to help benefit local communities. A typical example is Jatropha,  which is a non-edible bio-fuel crop that has grown in popularity in recent years. Grown properly, it can provide investors with a very beneficial return in short time scales whilst also supporting local farming communities. it can produce oil in the first year, reaches full maturity within three years and can often live for 30+ years. The value of Jatropha oil is linked closely to the value of crude oil and therefore is likely to benefit from future increases in oil prices. It also provides helps reduce  global dependence on crude oil imports.