5 Reasons to chose a responsible RRSP/TSFA

1. You are smart

• Geopolitical, environmental and societal risks dominate the 2015 World Economic Forum Global Risks report. Investing responsibly in your retirement savings plan is about taking positive action to mitigate these risks.
• Whether you believe it or not, the world of business and investment is changing to better recognize environmental limits, and social acceptability. Responsible investment strategies are more likely to increase the resilience of your portfolio companies in dealing with future challenges.
• Responsible investments, over the long-term, have repeatedly shown to perform similarly to traditional investments across the asset classes.

2. You are pragmatic

• Even if currently available RRSP- and TSFA-eligible responsible investment products are not perfect on the social value, investing in these products is better than not investing at all and better than investing without any consideration for social and environmental issues.
• It can be difficult to find investments that perfectly meet your social and environmental criteria, which means that you have to decide what’s most important for you and where, if anywhere, you are willing to compromise.

3. You are mindful

• You are mindful that everything you do has an impact.
• You are mindful that we are all interconnected.

4. You care

• You care about how workers should be treated, how the natural environment should be cared for, and how corporations should treat their shareholders.
• Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. They determine your priorities, and, deep down, they’re probably the measures you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you want it to.

5. You value consistency

• Consistency in personal values and goals matter to you.

You already live your life according to a particular belief system, and responsible investing is a logical addition to that system. The decisions that large corporations make have a much bigger impact than the decisions that one person makes; for example, riding your bike and only using renewable bags for your groceries will have less impact than using your retirement investment dollars to influence company behaviour (through the various responsible investment strategies). If you are an average investor with only a few shares, or even a couple hundred shares, you won’t likely have much influence on a company. Some people say that they sleep better at night knowing that their investment choices are aligned with their living principles, but there have been no scientific studies validating this claim.