Love this new tool I've been using from Interactive Brokers. I tell it what I care about ethically and it grades my stock portfolio based on the companies I invest in and their adherence to my moral preferences. Its a great way to invest and ensure you do so with an ethical motivation.

This is one of the portfolios I use for algorithmic trading. I'm trying to program into the algorithms a sense of ethics in how it trades and it seems to be working.

#stocks #Investing #InteractiveBrokers

@freemo

Avoiding "hazardous waste" *and* "greenhouse gas emissions" looks quite contradictory 🤔 so I'm a bit concerned that this "caring ethically" is nothing more than a selling point targeted a specific customer sector.

@kravietz @freemo hmm. how's that? seems consistent to me?

@2ck @kravietz Yea that confused me as well. If i prop up a wind turbine, which is little more than some metal blades, some wire, and a magnet, I am clearly reducing green house gas emissions.. Yet I wouldnt suddenly out of no where be dumping toxic waste in a river as a consequence of this decision... makes no sense, not sure what he really means.

@freemo @2ck

Life-time of PV panels and wind turbines is 20-30 years.

After which they become, well, "toxic waste" with high content of metals such as cadmium. They require careful decommissioning, recycling and waste management.

Failed PV farms did contaminate vast areas with heavy metals in the past.

@kravietz @freemo I hadn't really thought about recycling PV panels since I've never been in the position of acquiring them. PV recyclers do exist http://www.pvcycle.org/press/pv-cycle-and-recycle-pv-solar-announce-integrated-partnership-for-recycling-in-usa/ . Reclamation is much lower than it could be, but are you saying that you think these efforts will fail? If not, continuing to invest in solar and expanding the portfolio to include solar recycling seems like an appropriate course of action.

@2ck

The recycling of solar panels and wind turbines is a perfectly reasonable concern.. but to call them "toxic waste" is a bit of a leap. A wind turbine is essentially a bit of copper wire, a magnet, and some metal, there is little if anything toxic about it. As for solar panels, they to have very little toxic components, particularly if they are RoHS compliant in which case they wont even have lead (pretty much the only significant toxic component).

So really we are talking about regular old waste here, not toxic waste. Like i said while that should be addressed its hardly a counter point considering the massive amount of things we use in our daily life and toss that are far more concerning in terms of waste. Hell every personal computer has far more lead in it than a wind turbine or solar panel.

@kravietz

@freemo @2ck

> A wind turbine is essentially a bit of copper wire

And a large gearbox filled with a few hundreds of liters of gearbox fluid that needs to be replaced and recycled.

> regular old waste here, not toxic waste

Define toxic :)

@kravietz

Toxic waste is waste which is significantly poisonous to humans, by definition.

Gearbox oil would be considered toxic waste for example, and obviously is miniscule compared to the amount of oil it prevented the consumption of in its lifetime. Plus we already have good recycling infrastructure when it comes to used oil. So there is that added benefit that the oil isnt even being consumed in that case and just gets recycled anyway.

@2ck

@freemo @2ck

In such case some PV panels certainly count as "toxic waste" when large PV farms were abandoned and contaminated ground with cadmium specifically

https://fee.org/articles/solar-panels-produce-tons-of-toxic-waste-literally/

@kravietz @2ck @freemo I can't be bothered to read that article since it's locked in CloudFlare, but just wanted to add that solar panels are made by cooking coal and quartz until they fuse. That process can't be good for the air quality. But solar panels will evolve past that so it still makes sense to invest in the R&D. While investing in the production of today's solar tech is a bit of a hypocrisy.

@freemo @2ck @kravietz W.r.t. the OP, the #InteractiveBrokers impact tool is a great idea. At the same time I also have to say that the Morgan Stanley #ESG data that feeds the tool seems highly questionable. E.g. #Microsoft is terrible for the environment (fossil fuels) despite a high environmental rating.

@kravietz @2ck @freemo It's great progress that the impact tool exists -- I would not have expected enough investors to give a shit, so its existence is encouraging even though it's relatively useless. The "Beyond Meat" company only gets a neutral rating on environment.. wtf?

@freemo @2ck @kravietz ATM, #InteractiveBrokers is graylisted for ethics: https://git.disroot.org/cyberMonk/liberethos_paradigm/src/branch/master/us_brokerages.md

@koherecoWatchdog

Two of them are political and not particularly relevent (I really dont care that my broker didnt happen to lobby for CISPA and stuck to brokering).

In fact the only thing on that list that I'd even consider a black mark against the company is the forced drug testing of their employees. In one case that appears to even gotten a firm on the list.

So yea in that case that list means pretty much 0 to me.. though your earlier points about the validity of the ethical issues could be valid id have to look into that.

@2ck @kravietz

@freemo

I must admit this compulsory drug testing is one of these things that make people from Europe look at the US like some "Futurama" dystopia... 😉

@koherecoWatchdog @2ck

@kravietz @2ck @freemo yeah it was a big plus to working in Europe. Europe treats workers like adults. Doctors, not employers, demand drug tests & the doctor only tells employers if someone is unfit to work. It's a good policy that respects worker privacy and dignity. European employers are also not anal about drinking at work. A glass of wine with lunch is allowed.