An Intro: It’s not hard to Invest For Change!

If you have arrived on this page it was probably by googling a term such as “sustainable investments”. Maybe you were trying to find out your money’s “footprint”. Or, getting frustrated you might have typed “why can nobody tell me how to invest my savings sustainably?”.

With this blog I hope to help you to find the investment opportunities which drive the change our world desperately needs!
–> Quick link to traditional options for sustainable investing
–> Quick link to more alternative (and fun!) options for sustainable / impact investing

I started my journey as a sustainability-minded investor three years ago with very similar questions. As a business graduate with some savings on the side I was very aware of the opportunity cost of not investing those savings – meaning the returns (interest, dividends etc.) that I missed out on because my savings account has virtually zero interest. The money had to be properly invested! But I had also learned how many investments go to all the wrong places: energy companies lobbying against the energy transition, agricultural multinationals with dubious business practices (looking at you, Monsanto!). Even banks who themselves just don’t care about the impact of their investments.

It has become ever easier to buy organic food and clothing, sustainable furniture, even fairly produced mobile phones. So, certainly, sustainable investment products should be everywhere, right? Unfortunately, it all turned out a bit more difficult than expected.

Problem 1: The difficulty of navigating a young market that is still intransparent and confusing.

In other areas of life, you’ll find tools that provide an excellent overview of what offers there are and how they compare to each other: travelling has Booking.com, shopping has Amazon. But sustainable investing is immature like a guy in his thirties who wakes up hungover at eleven on a weekday. Get your shit together sustainable investing, we need you!

Problem 2: The idea of investing with a purpose is still not fully mainstream.

For most of capitalism’s history, investing was about generating returns and not much else. Now, Millennials and Gen Z care way more about what happens with their money than previous generations did. They are also fast becoming a force in retail investing.

But most banks have no real idea how to deal with this new demand. They struggle to provide the offers we really want: A way to invest that creates positive change in the world. Which brings me to the third point.

Problem 3: Obiquotuous greenwashing.

Virtually every mainstream bank offers some Green / Sustainable / Socially Responsible / [insert buzzword] fund. They all promise to put your money to work for a better future. That’s not necessarily untrue and has definitely improved in Europe since greenwashing regulations have tightened. But if you invest in these financial products, you’ll more likely than not still be holding shares of companies such as…

• …BMW whose boss in 2025 publicly called for cancelling the EU’s planned ban on internal combustion engines by 2035, thereby endangering the transition plan.
• …Total, a large oil company. Who ever had the great idea of calling a fund containing a French oil major “sustainable”? More on this contradiction to be found in my article on the Basics.
• …Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which is a sustainability front-runner (for instance by investing big in renewables), but who is drowning in cash anyway. Plus, you don’t really help a company by investing in their stock anyway, which is why Sustainable Investing is not the same as Impact Investing.

Do these problems sound familiar? Then you have come to the right place.

For this blog, I’m creating a step-by-step tutorial for sustainable investing and especially impact investing. It’s a work in progress. If you feel an important step is missing, not detailed enough or incomplete, drop me a line in the comments. The same applies if you disagree with something I write – nothing like a good argument to get to the bottom of things!

We will go a bit deeper on individual topics later on, but first things first! So, without further ado, let’s jump to Step 1 – Why your bank (probably) doesn’t have what you’re looking for – and why it’s still a good place to start.

PS: Ok, I admit. The title of this first post is not really true, at least not yet. But I cannot start a blog about creating positive impact on a negative note now, can I? 😉

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