Instant ethics — just open the package and give your conscience a break

How convenient it would be if we could find something out of a package — a computer programme, presumably — to do our conscience’s work for us. Then we could switch off and stop worrying. Happily, in the world of investment, this need has been met, with the invention of ethical funds, armed with ethical codebooks. These are the investors’ equivalent of buying bubble baths from the Body Shop — a tepid glow of self-satisfaction comes with them. The Financial Times even has an ethical investment index, smugly entitled FTSE4Good. Along the way, ethics have been codified and redefined to fit the package. Now investors in Framlington’s Health Fund find themselves called to a meeting and asked to approve a change in their fund’s objective and purpose. These now include an innocuous-looking sentence, committing the fund to invest subject to ethical guidelines. The managers want to cross this sentence out.