The landscape also changes. For the faith-driven investor, issues at the center of these screens do not move in a straight line through politics. What one administration funds, the next defunds. For the environmentally minded investor, the ground shifts just as fast. A company hailed as a clean-energy leader can lose its luster after a scandal; an oil giant can rebrand itself green; and the definition of a "responsible" company can be rewritten as regulations and public mood change. The ratings that drive ESG screens are not fixed laws of nature. They are judgments, and they get revised.
So the real work is not in picking a values fund once. It is deciding, with clear eyes, which of your values are nonnegotiable and which you can hold a little more loosely, and then revisiting that decision as the companies and the country both change underneath you. That is an ongoing conversation, not a one-time purchase.
The pitch sells certainty. The reality is judgment. And judgment is exactly what you should want from whoever is helping you build your retirement security.
Kurt Supe is a CPA and retirement planner with CFD Investments, Inc., Registered Broker Dealer, and Creative Financial Designs, Inc., Registered Investment Adviser, with almost 30 years of experience. For additional information and disclosures, visit www.creativefinancialgrp.com.
