Taking on the label of “vegan” means more than just eliminating meat and dairy products from your diet. Choosing a vegan lifestyle means you choose to respect the autonomy of every living thing. Beyond your food choices and into the way you live your life and the products you use, Demand Wealth is committed to crafting a portfolio that aligns with your vegan values, which includes avoiding any companies who test on animals. Let’s explore how we find companies to include in the ‘Demand Vegan’ portfolio and why it is important to align your financial life with your ethics.
How It Works
Through the use of a rigid screening process, we ensure that your money is supporting companies that share your beliefs. Partnering with the non-profit Cruelty-Free Investing, we weed out companies that exploit animals. One of these screens is the “Animal Testing Screen.” Cruelty-Free Investing flags any company which manufactures or sells products that use animals for experimentation. Consideration is applied to every publicly traded company in America with rigorous explanation in support of the company’s ethical practices, or conversely, the reasons why they are not vegan friendly. Take Johnson & Johnson which is a component of both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial average; this major pharmaceutical and health care company is under the do-not-invest list. Johnson & Johnson tests its products on animals, violating explicit vegan values. Your money will not be invested in companies that use animals for experimentation. The screening process is comprehensive across the board of all publicly traded companies in America.
Why It’s Important
Funding Animal Cruelty
Just because you’re not eating ‘it’ doesn’t mean you aren’t consuming it. You most likely care about the current mistreatment of animals by big business. These companies are violating animal rights through exposure to harsh conditions in order to “improve” and sell more of a product. When you invest your money into their stock, you are giving them the funds to continue their protocols. Investing in an index fund provides camouflage to these unethical companies, but make no mistake, you are implicitly supporting these organizations by owning most index funds. To make a change, we have to make our voices heard through our spending habits. The most effective way to get corporate America to change is when critical mass is reached through a shift in spending habits. The main priority of large corporations is to make a profit. If investor support is tangibly reduced, then they will have no option but to stop testing on animals.
Kinder Alternatives
There are so many great vegan and cruelty-free alternatives! These up and coming vegan brands are much smaller than their corporate competition, so they need all the support they can get in fighting for animal rights. Just like shopping local supports smaller stores, investing in these vegan brands can further the cause.
One of the most common offenders when it comes to animal testing tends to be cosmetic companies. They face the most backlash for using harsh chemicals on animals that eventually make it out into the market. Right now, it’s easier than ever to buy cruelty-free makeup or shampoo; so why not invest in those same companies? Don’t invest in the same companies that produce makeup you wouldn’t put on your face.
Cruelty-Free Cosmetics
- Pacifica
- Lush
- Alba
- Tom’s
- Aveda
- Jason
- Smashbox
The Bigger Picture
There are so many small choices we can make every day. It’s the little steps that eventually create big change. Those who go vegan are in it for deeper reasons then the title; often understanding changing the world requires personal action. With the resources available to pick and choose where you spend and invest your money, there is no reason you can’t invest according to your moral compass.
This report is a publication of Demand Wealth. Information presented is believed to be factual and up-to-date, but we do not guarantee its accuracy and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the author as of the date of publication and are subject to change.