Northern Global goes for sustainable stocks plan

There are many fine things that come from the north. Popular football teams. Pies. Cheap pints. The Beatles and an assortment of equally quality bands. Southerners that have got lost. And now there’s another addition, bearing the Northern tag: the Northern Global Sustainability Index Fund. No, nothing to do with the flow of chips in gravy, it’s a new green fund – a mutual that tracks funds in 24 countries which promote environmental, social and governmental responsibility.

It’s like wrapping yourself in a a great big warm fund blanket with a cup of mutual cocoa.

Want more? We’ll give you more.

The Northern Global Sustainability Index Fund is the first to track the KLD Global Sustainability(SM) Index (GSI), a market capitalization weighted index of large and mid-cap developed companies in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, launched in late 2007. The Index includes 693 of the highest-ranked companies in each sector based on a comprehensive environmental, social and governance screening process. Stocks are selected for numerous social responsibility factors through qualitative and quantitative analysis. Compared to other socially responsible funds generally costing more than 150 basis points, the Fund is competitively priced at 65 basis points with no sales charge.

Following the evolution of socially responsible investing, the Fund’s sustainability strategy seeks to include companies that address the social and environmental needs of the present, without compromising the quality of life of future generations, rather than exclude companies referred to as “sin stocks” or those that do not meet set criteria of social responsibility. Because this emerging methodology does not prohibit investments in particular sectors, it is sector neutral and thus limits the risk associated with sector variance found in many traditional socially responsible investment vehicles.