With increasing interest in sustainability and green initiatives, you may wish to know what the types and details of these initiatives are, what options there are for responsibly and sustainably investing in a green stock or company, and how to recognize green businesses in general. There are many benefits to recognizing green businesses where they reside around the world and supporting them with your business on a more regular basis. In this article, we’ll discuss what a green company is, what’s involved in choosing a sustainable company, and some of the top eco-friendly businesses, so you can better recognize and support them when you see them.
What Is a Green Company?
There are many different ways you can consider supporting and promoting positive environmental, social, and governance causes with your investment funds. However, there are various terms when it comes to these investments, making it sometimes unclear what the differences are and how to work to support the specific environmental, social, and cultural causes that mean the most to you. Arguably, one of the biggest overhead terms when it comes to responsible and sustainable investing is the term “green.” The term “green” in the context of responsible and environmental investments refers to any environmentally friendly and supportive investments.
Green investments work beyond decreasing environmental harm levels to truly affect positive change for the environment, including its wildlife, resources, and needs. Green investments usually have a specific company or organization involved that uses your financial contributions toward green efforts, including green business practices or active environmental efforts. A business that works toward and further promotes green practices and efforts can be considered a green company. However, it’s also important to be aware of greenwashing when looking at alleged green companies to avoid businesses that claim to have green practices and efforts that don’t ultimately hold up as environmentally sound or at claimed levels when examined more closely.
Choosing a Sustainable Company
More worldwide companies than ever before are increasing their awareness and adherence to green business practices and other environmental efforts, resulting in more options than ever before for current and new investors. With more green investment options than ever before, it can be difficult to narrow down and choose which companies to support with your investment funds. When you start to consider available green businesses to support, the terminologies can come into play again. While “green” refers to using environmentally friendly services and products, “sustainable” is another common if more specific environmental term referring to using services or products in a way that doesn’t damage natural resources.
The terms “green” and “sustainability” are often used closely together, or even synonymously despite “green” being the larger overhead term. However, when choosing which green stocks and companies to support with your investment funds, knowing these small differences can help you better decide. Different green companies use “sustainable” and other different terms to more precisely convey their past and current environmental efforts. A given company may have specific efforts and initiatives to support the environment and others to avoid increasing present environmental harm and destruction. Green and more specific sustainable efforts and initiatives both help the environment in impactful ways.
Top Eco-Friendly Businesses
Once you learn a bit more about some of the specific terms used in environmental investments and by green companies, you can better recognize some of the companies you’d like to support. “Eco-friendly” is another commonly used term that refers to services and products that aren’t environmentally harmful in nature. An eco-friendly business can have production, packaging, products, and more that are deemed safe for the environment. Some of the top things to look for when determining which sustainable, eco-friendly, or overall green firms to support and to see if they help the environment or avoid environmental harm as they claim include looking at their manufacturer, materials, packaging, investments, and philanthropy where applicable.
When choosing green stocks and businesses to support with your investment funds, it’s ideal to choose investments that can help the environment actively, avoid advancing present environmental harm, and provide consistent returns with as little investment risk as possible. These distinct factors can determine some of the best environmental investments for you to consider overall. The best green businesses also continue to maintain powerful reputations for their ability to inspire increasingly sustainable industry practices and for their continued commitment to the environment. Some of the top eco-friendly and otherwise sustainable companies to invest in are TOMS, Patagonia, Beyond Meat, and Lush Cosmetics.
TOMS
When it comes to eco-friendly and other green practices, TOMS continues to be one of the top companies in the world. Continually committed to sustainability, TOMS is also committed to several efforts to make the world a better place in general. Built by Blake Mycoskie over a decade ago, TOMS donates a pair of shoes to in-need communities with each shoe purchase while also offering eye services, clean drinking water, safe birth kits, and more to global communities.
Patagonia
Another highly popular brand, Patagonia continues its mission to provide the best products without harming the environment to any degree. The company is entirely upfront about its business practices and continues to work at increasing its eco-friendly practices and production methods. Patagonia continues to share information about its environmental initiatives over platforms and gives 1% of all its sales to Earth Tax, which supports forest restoration, endangered species protection, and more.
Beyond Meat
One of the biggest aspects contributing to climate change is meat production and other industry behaviors. Beyond Meat gives people access to quality plant-based products similar to meat in taste and feel.
Lush Cosmetics
A highly popular green business for cosmetics and other beauty products is Lush Cosmetics. An all-natural company committed to exhibiting the same high-quality in its beauty products from natural ingredients as you might receive elsewhere, Lush continues to inspire praise.
Recognizing Green Businesses
There are some specific ways to recognize and classify green businesses. Increase your support and connect with EGÉA SRI.
Disclosure:
A Roth IRA offers tax deferral on any earnings in the account. Qualified withdrawals of earnings from the account are tax-free. Withdrawals of earnings prior to age 59 ½ or prior to the account being opened for 5 years, whichever is later, may result in a 10% IRS penalty tax. Limitations and restrictions may apply.
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) / Environmental Social Governance (ESG) investing has certain risks based on the fact that the criteria exclude securities of certain issuers for non-financial reasons and, therefore, investors may forgo some market opportunities and the universe of investments available will be smaller.
This material was created for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as ERISA, tax, legal or investment advice. If you are seeking investment advice specific to your needs, such advice services must be obtained on your own separate from this educational material.
