What does the word 'ethical' mean to you? Everyone's answer is different and this can be confusing. Take the well-known comedian, Jimmy Carr. He's listed as an official supporter of Fair Trade, but in 2012 it emerged that he had been dodging tax by storing over £3million in offshore tax havens. So is he ethical, or not?
We could argue about this all day, but if you're an investor with strong ideas about ethical practices in business, then you might want to consider investing some or all of your money in an 'ethical' fund. We'll come to exactly what this means in a minute, but even if you've only got eyes for profits and aren't that concerned about ethics, some ethical funds look like good money-makers and we think you could use them to diversify your portfolio and reap healthy long-term rewards.
Ethical funds haven't traditionally been seen as strong performers. But Morningstar data compiled for Investors Chronicle suggests that many are starting to catch up in terms of performance in the past year. But over five years, non-ethical funds still performed better.