The website of investment manager Stonebridge Capital Advisors of St. Paul barely mentions its practice of scanning for environmental, social and corporate governance issues when picking investments.
Only a search for the word "environmental" turned up a brief mention of what's called ESG investing.
Yet managing portfolios for clients that try to match investments with their values is a big part of what this firm does. And it can be "complicated," said Stonebridge CEO and portfolio manager Bob Kincade.
Before any investor can direct a financial advisor or asset manager like Kincade on where they want their money to go, they first have to think it through. Try it. It's not as easy as it sounds.
You might also think of ESG investing as a faddish recent development, yet Kincade can remember socially conscious investing when he got started in the profession in the late 1970s. It's only grown since then.
ESG investing is now common, and if Morgan Stanley's offering it, everybody is. And that's part of the challenge for investors.
ESG investing used to be thought of as the financial equivalent of an elimination diet, where the investor or portfolio manager avoids stocks and corporate bonds that won't be good for you.
In the past, that meant screening out the stocks of businesses like cigarette makers or coal and oil producers. More recently, though, investment managers have made sure investors also find companies they approve of, maybe companies working to slow climate change or creating more opportunities for women and people of color in corporate leadership.