Investment - Articles - Kames Capital commitment to ethical investment market

 Kames Capital says it is committed to offering ethical investments despite several of its rivals recently scaling back their product offerings and socially responsible investment activities in this market.
 Kames is making the commitment as it believes there is still a strong and growing demand for ethical investments in the UK. It also expects this trend is likely to continue as ethical funds become more widely available through different investment channels and platforms.

 Kames, which has been in the ethical market for over 20 years, operates a ‘dark green' negative screening approach to ethical investing and offers investors a choice of funds including, the Kames Ethical Corporate Bond, Kames Ethical Cautious Managed and Kames Ethical Equity Funds.

 By applying its stringent ‘dark green' screening criteria to its funds, Kames rules out much of its invest-able spectrum, but it believes that this distinct ethical criteria actually makes it easier to differentiate it from funds which offer a broader SRI type concept to their fund management approach.

 Kames Capital head of retail sales Steve Kenny says: ‘We believe there is a strong demand for ethical investing despite some of our peers closing their ethical desks. We have seen net inflows into all three of our funds during 2011 and with ethical products increasingly being available through new channels and platforms we believe there is definitely a strong market for this type of product.'