From “The Social Justice Investor: Advance Your Values While Building Wealth, Whether a Few Dollars or Millions” by Andrea Longton, CFA
Social justice returns are evidence of authentic social change.
Whether you’re investing in Black-owned small businesses to advance racial justice, buying stocks of companies that develop solar farms in low-wealth communities, investing in companies that pay a living wage to their hourly employees, or selecting an ETF that screens for companies that have adopted LGBTQIA+ equal employment policies, you as an investor need to see how your money is financing authentic social change.
The catch? Social justice returns are notoriously difficult to articulate.
Whereas financial earnings are linear and measured like inches along a ruler, social justice returns are expansive and measured like the volume of a balloon. When your dollars create authentic social change, they ripple out further than you will ever see or could possibly imagine.
Trying to gauge social justice returns with conventional investment tools is like trying to measure a balloon with a ruler: frustrating and wholly inadequate.
Social justice investors will do well to remember what James Clear taught us in his seminal classic, Atomic Habits. “In our data-driven world, we tend to overvalue numbers and undervalue anything ephemeral, soft, and difficult to quantify. We mistakenly think the factors we can measure are the only factors that exist. But just because you can measure something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing. And just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s not important at all.”