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Ethical shopping 'moving from retailers to financial services'

The rise of ethical investments is part of a wider shopping trend by politically-conscious and environmentally-engaged consumers, it has been suggested.

Lee Coates, the director of Ethical Investors, said that many had made a progression from buying Fairtrade goods in shops to requiring high ethical standards from their money managers.

He commented: "Environmental human rights issues are…something that people are increasingly looking at in their daily lives via the shopping basket - Fairtrade, better, greener products - and then transposing that to another product they buy, which is financial services.

"So it's not unconnected; the day to day shopping basket and the increase in ethical products there and the increase in ethical investment."

Accordingly, the amount invested in such 'green' funds by British consumers has risen to £9 billion across 750,000 accounts, according to the Ethical Investment Research Service.

This represents a marked increase over 1997, when just £1.5 billion was invested ethically across 137,000 accounts.

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