Ethical means different things to different people, but in this case refers to stocks and sectors that are excluded from an investment portfolio.
This is known as ‘negative screening’. Quilter Cheviot has a firm-wide policy to avoid investing in companies involved in the manufacture, development or trade of controversial weapons, specifically anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions.
There are some sectors which can receive more attention than others (the traditional ‘sin sectors’ – tobacco, arms, gambling, alcohol and pornography) but ultimately ethics are personal, so we do not take a one-size-fits-all approach.
