Socially Responsible Investing Is Not Just for �Tree Huggers�

Marc Lane’s investment company has two “passionate, deeply committed” clients whose portfolios are almost polar opposites in political bent, he said. One, a self-described pacifist, opposes U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and does not want to invest in “war machinery,” including defense contractors and U.S. treasuries, Lane said. To the other investor, social responsibility means taking care of his kids. “He said, ‘Double up on homeland security,’ the same stocks we excluded from the other client’s portfolio,” Lane said. “These are two diverse views of the world. There is no right or wrong, as far as we’re concerned. To us, what’s right is to advance your views of the world with the tools we have available.”

Lane, author of Profitable Socially Responsible Investing, president of The Law Offices of Marc J. Lane and its financial services affiliates, including Marc J. Lane & Company and Marc J. Lane Investment Management, Inc. spoke to the Business Book Roundtable at Gleacher Center on February 23. “Social responsibility is how you define it. It’s a free-market approach, and the choices are up to the client, ” he said.

Lane designs a socially responsibly portfolio just as he would any other, he said. A tentative portfolio is developed “exclusively as a financial exercise,” Lane said. “As an extra step we will look at every security in the portfolio against the social justice and/or environmental screens unique to that investment,” he said. If a company conflicts with those values, Lane makes substitutions. “We go back to the drawing board and identify a company in the same industry that satisfies all of our financial tests, but then make sure it jumps through all our social hoops,” he said.

—Phil Rockrohr